Reset: The Kushina Effect HIATUS
by Feilyn
Summary: Sometimes it's not about saving the world. Sometimes saving /a/ world is enough. Uzumaki Kushina is alive, and woe befall anyone who tries to harm her son. We all know what Naruto can do growing up alone. Imagine what he could do with a mother's love.
1. Prologue

_**Disclaimer: **Is not mine. God damn it._

_I've fallen in love with the idea that one person can change everything. No one knows what happened to Kushina, but in this story she's alive and willing to protect her son at all costs._

_This is the first part of the_ Reset_ duology. The second will be, rather imaginatively named, _Reset: The Naruto Effect_. Once _The Naruto Effect_ is finished, I'll write a prequel to the duology called _The Minato Effect_. It can't be a part of Reset, as it's written as if it actually happened, with no changes to canon._

_So! Here you are, if you will. The prologue of _Reset: The Kushina Effect.

xXx

_While the rest of Konohagakure gather together and take comfort in each other, a select group of exhausted shinobi find they still have no time to rest. They sit in an unknown chamber, the flickering light of the many candles casting shadows on their faces._

"So it's decided then." Uchiha Fugaku waved his hand negligently. "Sarutobi-san will resume his duties as Hokage. Now if you'll excuse me—"

Orochimaru hissed. "Just because you have nominated a candidate, Uchiha, does not mean the matter is automatically decided."

"And who would you suggest, Sannin?" Uchiha asked, seemingly pleasant. "It is a well known fact that you desire to see your face on Hokage Mountain, but it appears no one is here to nominate you."

Orochimaru lunged for the head of the Uchiha Clan, but was restrained by Sarutobi's hand on his shoulder.

"Sit, Orochimaru," the Sandaime Hokage said softly before turning to his ex-student's antagonist. "If you have no wish to have your say in the future of this village, Uchiha Fugaku, by all means feel free to leave."

The Uchiha settled back into his chair.

Silence.

One of the Elders cleared his throat. "So, that's one nomination for Sarutobi-sama. Is there anyone else willing to put forth a candidate?" It went unspoken that there was only one other person in the room with enough power to take the position.

Orochimaru growled and swept out of the chamber.

"No other nominations?"

"What of Tsunade? Or Jiraiya?" Sarutobi suggested quietly.

"Tsunade—"

"Tsunade-san still refuses to return to the village, even imperilled as it was by the Nine-Tails," another Elder interrupted the first. Her voice held nothing but contempt. "As for Jiraiya—" She snorted. "Even if we were to find him, he is not Hokage material."

"Much the same was said of myself, Yamashita Chiaki," Sarutobi said slowly.

The Elder paled. "I – I meant no offence, Sarutobi-sama."

He chuckled, standing. "Not to me, you didn't. But you are right. Tsunade will not return to the village. Jiraiya cannot be found. _Orochimaru_ is not Hokage material." He sighed. "The Sannin will not save us this time. My fellow shinobi, I retired for a reason. However—" Sarutobi held up a hand to ward off the protests. "If there is no other candidate, I will resume my duties as Hokage."

He looked around the room of Elders and Clan Heads. "There is no other candidate, is there?" He sighed again, sitting down. "Very well."

"On to the next problem, then?" The head of the Nara Clan yawned. "Troublesome." He stood. "Unfortunately, I have a family to return to. The fate of Uzumaki Naruto will have to be decided without me." He left.

"Coward," Uchiha muttered idly under his breath. "I suggest it is killed. Any other conclusion reached will…severely disappoint me. I have my own sons to think of."

"Are you perhaps intimating that you cannot adequately defend your Clan, Uchiha?" Hyuuga Hiashi said mildly.

The Uchiha's face darkened, reaching for a kunai.

"Enough!" the newly reinstated Sandaime Hokage snapped. "Fugaku, do not bandy your political weight around in this matter and Hiashi, refrain yourself from provoking him. I am taking of Uzumaki Naruto, the infant. Not the demon fox Kyuubi."

"They are one and the same!" an Elder protested. "Have you not seen him, Hokage-sama? The markings on his face—"

"Occur in every Jinchuuriki," Sarutobi interrupted. "They mean nothing."

"The Yondaime himself said that the Kyuubi would be sealed inside that – thing!"

"Minato's last request was to ask that his son be treated like a hero. You insult his memory by referring to Naruto as a _thing_."

"We are unsure as to how that seal works, Sandaime," Uchiha said. "What we do know is that if the vessel is killed, the monster is killed as well. Is it not reasonable to suggest that it – excuse me, _Naruto_ – is neutralised? For the protection of the village?"

Murmurs of agreement.

"After all," Uchiha continued. "Are we even sure the brat – excuse me again, Hokage-sama, _hero_ – is even the Yondaime's offspring? Uzumaki Kushina is not exactly known for her—"

The door to the dank chamber was suddenly kicked open to reveal a red-haired woman carrying a squalling blonde baby in her arms. What was left of her chakra had taken on a life of its own, causing her long hair to whip around in a non-existent wind and her bright orange clothing to glow.

"Kushina!" Sarutobi exclaimed. "You're alive!" It was very obviously a quick cover up, but Kushina didn't appear to notice that.

She blinked and the chakra died down. "Of course I'm alive, old man." She turned to the baby in her arms and put him over her shoulder, patting his back until he burped. She laughed at him, apparently oblivious to the incredulous looks being directed at her.

One of the guards, a chuunin with virtually no field experience ran past her into the room.

"I'm sorry!" he babbled. "I'm so sorry, but she just barged in and she was carrying the demon child and—"

Kushina snarled at him, the chakra force billowing out again as she took two sharp steps forwards and punched him in the side of the head, knocking him out. She turned her irate glare to the assembled Elders and Clan Heads, brown eyes almost red in her anger. She seemed to have remembered her reason for barging into the room in the first place.

"I'm sorry, I appear to have gotten briefly off track," she said, and her voice was deathly quiet. "Now, would someone like to tell me why, exactly, a meeting was organized to decide the fate of my son and _I was not invited!_"

"Possibly because we knew you would react like this," Uchiha drawled.

She hissed and went to throw the nearest heavy object at the Clan Head. This happened to be Naruto and she couldn't put him down to pick something up so she was, unfortunately, unable to injure the Uchiha. "I thought I was meant to be _dead_." she growled instead, shooting a hurt glare at the Sandaime, who winced.

"Kushina—"

"I heard you before. You were talking about killing Naruto. My _baby_, and straight after Minato was taken from me. Old man, how could you?"

There were several shocked gasps at the way Kushina had addressed Sarutobi. Even as a former Hokage, he deserved respect far above that of 'old man'.

"If you had been listening like a shinobi instead of a common fishwife, Uzumaki, you would have heard the Hokage _defending_ your – ah, son." Hyuuga sniffed.

"Oh, shut up you snobby bastard. What's got up your nose, found a split end or something?" she snarked childishly, trying to bring her chakra under control.

There was a stifled snort, and if Uchiha hadn't been so well-bred, Kushina would have thought it came from him.

"Let me tell you now," she continued. "If you want to kill my son, as cliché as it sounds, you _will_ have to go through me."

"Please, stop abusing the italics," Uchiha muttered. Louder, he told her, "That can easily be arranged, you realise."

This time it looked like she was seriously considering throwing her son.

"We are not going to kill Naruto, Kuhina."

Her brown eyes widened, losing the red tint as her chakra finally calmed down. "You – you're not?" she whispered, clutching him closer to her chest. He sneezed.

"We're not?" Uchiha raised an eyebrow.

"Right, that's it—" Kushina moved forward in a blink, leaving Naruto in a bemused Sandaime's arms and rolling up her sleeves, fully intent on throttling the head of the Uchiha Clan. Naruto gurgled happily and reached up to tug on Sarutobi's goatee.

"Kushina!" he barked, absently replacing his beard with his finger. "Need I remind you that you are only here in this village—"

She pivoted around to face him. "Bastard old man, give me back my baby!" She snatched Naruto out of his arms. "I fought for this village like I fought for my own. I would _die_ for Konohagakure! I damn well nearly _did_."

"I see what you mean by the italicising," Hyuuga muttered to Uchiha, who nodded back sagely. Kushina ignored them.

"And now you – you're threatening me? With exile?" She shook her head angrily and a close observer could see a tear flying away. "Fine then. I'll leave." She turned on her heel towards the door.

"Kushina."

She didn't pause.

"_Kushina_."

The young woman felt a bit like a yo-yo, turning back and forth but the Sandaime was basically _demanding_ her to stay and no one demanded _anything_ of Uzumaki Kushina. Her teeth were clenched tightly as she spat a reply back him.

"I don't think you quite understand the situation, old man. Minato is dead. _He is dead!_" she screamed suddenly.

The entire room was silent, watching her slightly crazed eyes. Kushina didn't care what they thought. Her lover was dead, and now they were trying to take her son?

"He is dead," she repeated in a quieter tone. "And our son is the only thing I have left of him. I love Konoha like I love the village I was born into, but I love Naruto more."

"He killed the Hokage!" someone yelled.

The chakra flared again and the red veil fell over her eyes. "He – did – _not!_ Minato chose to perform that jutsu. He chose to seal the demon inside our son so that your lives could be saved. Don't you get it? He did it all for you! You, who cowered and hid your children away because as much as you love your Hokage, you love your pathetic Clan reputations far more."

"He never—"

"He shouldn't have had to ask! It doesn't matter! The only thing that makes a Jinchuuriki into something evil is people like _you_ who automatically assume the vessel is the demon. 'Who wants a monster in their family'." She spat, literally, on the floor. "I do. Because whatever he carries inside of him, he is still my son. And you all _sicken_ me for believing I would think otherwise." She went to leave and then paused one last time. "And you know what? I'm not leaving. Not until you drag my cold, lifeless body out of those gates, because Naruto deserves a place here as much as any of your children." Kushina finally managed to compose herself, and with quiet dignity, ended her tirade. "He is the son of the Yondaime Hokage. I will ensure that you all remember it."

xXx

_I had so much fun writing that. I hope you had as much fun reading it!_


	2. Chapter 1

_I know it kind of seems that they're throwing Naruto around like a rag doll, but the truth is that Kushina is a ninja, and incredibly graceful at that. She's fully in control whenever she's holding her baby, and Kakashi's probably just as skilled. In fact, he'd be more skilled, but he's a man. Boy. Thing. Lol_

_Chapter One! Not everyone hates Naruto!_

xXx

Kushina smiled shakily down at her baby, reaching out a finger and gently tracing around his face. "You look just like him, Naruto. Just like Minato."

"Yo."

The red-head shrieked and whipped around, baby in one hand and kunai flying from the other.

Fifteen year old Hatake Kakashi caught the blade out of midair and looked down at it. "Hn. Good shot."

Kushina visibly sagged in relief. "Oh, it's only you." She gestured at an armchair next to the fire and then paused. _That's Minato's chair_. "Actually, let's just sit at the table."

She saw recognition light in his eye as it flicked over to the chair and back again. "Sure."

"How was the funeral?" she asked as they sat down. Naruto stirred in her arms, opening one bleary blue eye and yawning. She watched the whisker marks on his cheeks stretch.

Kakashi shrugged. "Not sure. Started about ten minutes ago."

She frowned at him. "Then what are you doing here?"

"Keeping you company." He yawned. "A two man protest still isn't much of a protest, but it's better than just you."

The villagers had petitioned Sarutobi as the newly reinstated Hokage to refuse Naruto entry into his father's funeral. Unable to protest for fear of having the village fall further into chaos, Sarutobi had reluctantly agreed, causing Kushina to destroy part of the Hokage's office when she was told and then refuse her rightful place carrying Minato's coffin as his chosen life partner.

"You should go, Kakashi," Kushina said softly staring down at her baby. _Our baby._ "You don't have to—"

The front door opened. "Actually, he does," came a soft voice. Kushina looked up in surprise to see two small figures standing in her doorway. The person speaking was Rin, Kakashi's best friend and team mate. "And so do we." Umino Iruka clung to her wrist, looking nervously at Naruto.

Kushina blinked. "What are you brats doing here?" she asked gruffly.

"Well, Kakashi was later than usual and then I suddenly realised _why_ and felt really stupid for not thinking of it myself." Rin shrugged. "So I left, and Iruka here followed me." She blinked down at the Academy student. "I'm not actually sure why he followed me. Someone's meant to be keeping an eye on the orphans."

Iruka's eyes teared up at the mention of his status and Rin started to panic. "Uh, I'm sorry Iruka-kun! I didn't mean it to sound like that! Ah, shit, I have no tact whatsoever…Hey Iruka-kun, I'm an orphan too! We can be orphans together!" Rin had very obviously had a long time to get used to having no parents.

Kakashi shook his head as tears started rolling down Iruka's cheeks. "Kakashi, hold Naruto for me, would you?" Without waiting for an answer, Kushina handed her baby to the young jounin who looked at him like he'd never seen an infant before, let alone held one.

The red-haired woman walked over to the Academy student and crouched down in front of him so they were at eye level. "Hey, Iruka-kun." She cocked her head to one side. "You miss your parents?"

He shook his head stubbornly.

"You don't?" She pretended to be surprised. "Why not?" _Stupid bloody ninja code._

"Because they're heroes," he said softly, looking at his feet. "They died for the village. It was an honourable death. A shinobi death."

Kushina sighed. "Iruka-kun, have you learnt about what happened to Whirlpool Country?"

His eyes widened and he nodded, hesitantly. Everyone knew what had happened to Whirlpool Country. The tutors at the Academy lingered particularly on the destruction of the Hidden Village.

"I was fourteen at the time of the attack, and because of how fast I am I was one of the shinobi charged with going to Konohagakure to beg for reinforcements. I got here first and the Village tried as hard as they could, but by the time reinforcements arrived, my Village was destroyed. They were lucky enough to get there in time to defend the civilians in the safe-houses." She took a deep breath, well aware that the boy was hanging onto her every word. "My parents died during the first attack, Iruka, and I still miss them."

His head jerked up. "But you – you're—"

"A proper shinobi, right? That doesn't mean I can't miss my parents. I loved them. They died a hero's death, and I love them even more for that. And because I love them more, I miss them more."

"But the way of ninja is that…well…" The boy trailed off, unsure.

"Sometimes the way of the ninja is not always the right way," Kakashi said quietly. His one eye was trained on the baby Naruto, who was gurgling happily, hands waving in the air trying to catch the kunai Kakashi was dangling over him.

"Kakashi's right, Iru – _Kakashi!_ Get that damned kunai away from my baby _now!_"

The young jounin flicked it up into the air and it disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Not real," he explained.

Iruka was giggling now, probably at the look on her face.

"So, who's looking after you, Iruka-kun?" Kushina asked, smiling for the boy.

His nose wrinkled up around the scar bisecting it. "Yamashita-sama."

She mimicked his face and he grinned. "That dried up old stick? I bet she's no fun at all."

Iruka shook his head. "She keeps on yelling at me for forgetting the –sama at the end of her name," he said quietly.

_Damn you six ways to hell, Yamashita Chiaki. The boy just lost his parents!_ Kushina felt a wave of motherly protectiveness wash over her suddenly.

"Ne, Iruka-kun?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you why you left Minato's funeral to come here?"

He blushed. "Um…well, at first I sort of…hated Naruto-san." Kushina started at the idea of her son already being referred to as –san. "But then, I heard you yelling at Hokage-sama and a lot of what you were saying made sense and last week everyone was saying that Naruto-san would be a great man and now they're all calling him a monster and it's not fair!" He blushed again, embarrassed by his outburst, and his face reddened even further as Kushina gathered him up into an impromptu hug.

The red-haired woman was never one for thinking before she acted, but on later reflection she was sure she would have made the decision anyway. She took him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Iruka-kun. Do you think Naruto is a human being? Do you think you could like him, look after him?"

Iruka smiled so hard at her his eyes closed as he nodded. "Mm!"

"Right, it's settled then." She winked. "Unless you wanted to stay with Yamashita-baka?"

He giggled at the nickname, then look confused. "I – I don't know what you mean," he confessed.

"I want you to move in with me!" Kushina exclaimed, waving her arms for emphasis. "I'll be your new auntie! Or sister! I've never had anyone call me nee-chan before."

Kakashi and Rin were staring at her with undisguised shock. In fact, so was Iruka. She looked down at the boy. "What?"

And he burst into tears again, launching herself at her. Kushina had surrounded herself with children for years, so she knew exactly how to hug him again so he wouldn't feel like a girl for his tears, but could still cry himself out on her shoulder.

"You mean it?" he said finally.

"Of course I mean it!" She gasped, mock offended. "I'm Uzumaki Kushina, and I never lie or take back my words!" The woman flicked him on the nose, making him go cross eyed. "That's _my_ way of the ninja."

Rin shook her head, wandering over to her Kakashi and trying to take Naruto from him. Almost involuntarily, her friend jerked the arm with the baby in it away from her. She stared at him, shocked and he stared at Naruto, even more shocked before abruptly handing him over.

Kushina looked on, astonished, as Minato's other student handled her baby with no sign of fear whatsoever. A little apprehension at holding something so fragile as a baby, sure, but no fear that the Kyuubi was going to eat her.

"Kushina-san," the girl asked, frowning. "Has Naruto been checked over?"

The red-head shook her head, standing up but still keeping a hold on Iruka's hand. "No one wants to touch him," she growled.

Rin rolled her eyes. "Idiots. Do you want me to take a look? If you could tell me how that jutsu sensei used was meant to work, I could see if it was working properly."

Kushina blinked. "You – you would do that?"

"Of course! Even if Naruto wasn't so damned cute, you saved my life. I'd do it for you, if not for him."

"But…you're not doing it for me."

"Kushina-san, Naruto is only a week old. He needs regular check-ups, even more now that he's got the Kyuubi sealed in him. I'll do it for _him._"

She looked around at everyone, wondering how three little brats could make everything feel alright, even if only for a moment. She opened her mouth to tell them so when the door crashed open.

"Oi, Kushina! What's this I here about you stealing children again?"

"DAMN IT, JIRAIYA, I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SAY SOMETHING REALLY COOL!" Kushina yelled at the Sannin standing on the ruins of her door. Naruto started wailing at the noise, and it occurred to Kushina that Jiraiya wasn't meant to be in the Village. "Wait, what? The hell are you doing here, ero-sennin?" Rin started fussing over Naruto, trying to get him to calm down.

The white-haired Sannin scratch his head. "Ah, well, I had a bad sort of feeling and then I heard the rumours, so I thought I'd better come home and check things out. To be honest I probably wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't heard that you were still alive."

"I'm honoured," Kushina replied shortly. "Why aren't you at the funeral, baka-san?"

"Eh, you needed me more than Minato does right now. Three little idiots—" He swept his arm around the room, indicated the children. "—aren't going to do much for your boy's reputation, but I might be able to help out."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't bother, Jiraiya. If you're not staying, there's no point. In fact, you'd probably make it worse."

"Yeah, been thinking about that."

Kushina looked at him suspiciously.

"Last time I was in, Sarutobi said that Orochimaru was doing something weird. Now that the old man's Hokage again, he'll probably do some checking up on him." Jiraiya rubbed his nose. "It's probably not anything serious, but that prophecy's been rubbing me up the wrong way too."

"You're going to talk about that in front of the children?"

"Not a child," all three of them muttered simultaneously. Kushina grinned at them.

"Eh, sure, why not? So my students are going to be changing the world, but last I heard those three from Amegakure were dead and now Minato's gone so is the last Team Nine. It's hard to change the world dead. Possible, but hard."

"What are you saying, Jiraiya?"

"Well, Minato's left behind a legacy, hasn't he? Your boy over there, Naruto." He yawned. "You got plenty of room in this house, don't ya?"

"Less and less, it seems," Kushina replied. "So you're staying then. Here."

"For a bit, yeah."

She squinted at him. "I catch you peeping, ero-sennin, and not even Tsunade would be able to patch you up."

"It's not peeping, it's research!" He blanched at the look on her face and held his hands up defensively. "Fine, fine. No research here."

"Um…Kushina-san? Would you like me to look Naruto over now?"

Kushina looked over at Rin, who was smiling down at a once-again calm Naruto. "Please do," she replied. "Iruka? Would you like to come and meet Naruto?"

The boy nodded, although he moved to her other side so as to be further away from Jiraiya. The man pouted before trailing after the two, intent on getting a look at Naruto as well.

Rin knelt down so Iruka could see the baby boy. The Academy student went to hold the blonde child himself and then paused, looking up uncertainly at Kushina. "Can I hold him?"

"For sure," she grinned. "In fact, Iruka, you look after baby Naruto while I go and get his cot so Rin can look after him properly, okay?"

He nodded seriously, taking Naruto in his arms.

Kushina was well aware of Jiraiya's presence following her down the hall to a small room.

"Eh?" He looked around, taking in the single bed and the small cot next to it. There was nothing else in the room. "I thought the room further down was yours."

Her form stiffened and he frowned. "No," she whispered softly. "That's our room, Jiraiya. Not mine."

xXx

_Whoa. Exam stress really DOES make me write fast! One day for this chapter, ladies and gents. Even though I shoved off studying to do it._

_Now, some notes on Jiraiya. In the actual story line, as far as I can remember and Wiki tells me, after leaving the Third's tutelage Jiraiya wanders around the world and encounters the prophecy (also, toads). He teaches some orphans, one of whom ends up as Pein and eventually returns to Konoha where he gets his Genin team including Minato. For the sake of the story line, after Minato becomes Hokage, Jiraiya resemes his wandering, popping in and out of Konoha to help out with wars and such like things. Now in the real manga I think he just stayed put and then disappeared when Orochimaru leaves._


	3. Chapter 2

_Well, I just thoroughly depressed myself. Reading Naruto manga, man…Sasuke's really not coming back. What we see of him after the time skip is just a shell. Damn, is he ever fucked once Itachi dies/is killed. What's left for him after that?_

_Yeah, Naruto's brought me to tears before, but the whole thing's just so damned sad. I mean, seriously! When was the last time something happy happened? Well, there was the whole Gaara thing, after he was brought back, but Chiyo-baa overshadowed that. _

_So. My way of making Naruto happier – chapter two!_

xXx

Kushina juggled Naruto in one hand and a spatula in the other, simultaneously watching over the pancakes sizzling away and the chaos that was the kitchen table.

"Jiraiya! Wait your turn and stop stealing Iruka's pancakes! Iruka-kun, stop _letting _him. Rin—" The woman blinked. "Rin, what are you doing in my house?"

"Me?" the girl exclaimed. "What about Kakashi? He's the one who dragged me here!" She turned hastily to Iruka. "Uh…not that I didn't want to be here on the morning of your graduation, Iruka-kun." Everyone had become very wary of upsetting Iruka over the past six months – he had a wicked sense of humour and some of his pranks were sheer genius. Painful, but genius.

"Pancakes," Kakashi pointed out.

"You brats only want me for my food. Speaking of, how's the apartment going for the two of you, Rin, Kakashi?" Not that food had anything to do with it, but two months before Rin had decided that Kakashi needed someone to live with, dragged him to her apartment and made him stay. Kushina had assumed the young jounin was merely humouring his friend, but he'd actually stuck it out. She hoped like hell there was nothing other than friendship going on there, because it could only end in tears – specifically, Rin's. Despite how the girl had changed after Obito's death, her heart hadn't hardened that. much.

Kushina was sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The girl threw an accusing finger at Kakashi. "Him! He never helps with dinner or the dishes, he makes _me_ do his dirty washing, he…"

Kushina drowned Rin out as she continued listing Kakashi's faults. Eventually she'd run out of fingers and just punch him, like she always did and Kakashi would let her because – actually, Kushina had no idea why he let her.

"Jiraiya, I swear if you don't leave his pancakes alone I'm going to beat you with my saucepan," she threatened.

A pause. "With or without the pancake in it?"

Kushina rolled her eyes.

"Bua!" said Naruto.

"Hey, new word!" She grinned down at her son. "Yes, Naruto. Bua indeed.

"Not a real word," the table chorused in the tones of those long suffering.

"Shut up, the lot of you. I've got the pancake mix, and if I say 'bua' is a word then it's a – _Ji-rai-ya!_" she ground out, throwing the nearest thing that wasn't baby or spatula at the old man trying once again to sneak Iruka's pancakes.

He stared. "Did you just throw the spatula at me?"

"Don't be silly. I still need that."

"That's a wooden spoon, ero-sennin," Kakashi observed.

"Oi! Don't you call me ero-sennin, baka! One day you'll be just as perverted as I am!" Jiraiya laughed, quite happy with the prospect of corrupting another generation. Never mind that it hadn't worked on Minato the first time.

That had been Kushina's job.

Rin flexed her hand idly and her eyes were like green fire as she looked at the man from beneath her lashes. "I thought it was research?" she remarked, and the words sounded like a thunderclap should have accompanied them.

Jiraiya's laugh this time was high-pitched and nervous. "Is that a storm coming?" While Tsunade hadn't taken Rin on as an apprentice, she'd still given her basic training and when it came to Tsunade basic training was more than enough to castrate someone.

Iruka started laughing at the look on Jiraiya's face, and after one last clench of her hand, Rin joined in. Even Kakashi managed a small smirk from behind his mask

She smiled happily as well, flipping the pancake.

"_Oi, Minato."_

_He twisted around in his chair, wearing the smile that had always been just for her. "What did Rin say?" His desk was covered in reports. Idiot had been working overtime again._

_Kushina yawned, stretching. She smirked as Minato's eyes wandered down to the bare skin she'd revealed and then back up to her face. Hokage he may have been, but he was still a man._

Hah. And a man in love with me,_ Kushina thought smugly. "Eh, she said it'd pass over soon. One of those temporary things, y'know?"_

_He frowned slightly. "I've never had a temporary vomiting fit. At least, not consistently every morning for a week. Actually I've never had a sustained vomiting fit either. Do you think Rin would let me go over some of her notes?" _

_Some genius._

_Kushina grinned, sauntering over and draping her arms around his neck. "Forget about it. I'll be fine and you don't need to see Rin's notes." She kissed along the line of his jaw, ending at the corner of his mouth. "You're taking me out to dinner."_

_She felt the quirk of his lips against hers. "Am I now?" _

_Kushina knew her lover well enough to feel him gazing at the reports on his desk. _

_"Yep. We're celebrating." She pulled back and moved around the chair so she could dump herself into his lap. "Ever thought about having a family, Minato?"_

_He laughed, kissing her nose lightly. "Always, Kushina. Why?"_

"_How soon?" Shifting around, the red-head arranged herself so she was straddling his lap._

"_Anytime." He definitely wasn't looking at those reports now._

_"How's nine months for you?"_

Kushina shook her head at the memory, smile slipping a little. For a genius, Minato really had been an idiot. She'd managed to make her way to the front door before he came running after her and swept her up in a hug that ended up breaking her arm. She'd kicked him through the wall for that one.

"_My pancakes_!" Jiraiya's wail broke through her reverie. Kushina blinked down at the saucepan to discover a mess of charcoal and shrugged.

"There's more mix here, make your own. Iruka-kun, you ready?"

The boy she'd taken in a half year ago nodded, albeit it a tad nervously. "Yes, Kushina-nee-chan."

"Right then." She turned to Kakashi and Rin, ignoring the weeping Jiraiya. "We'll head off then. You two come along at the end of the day for the graduation ceremony, alright?"

She got a firm nod and a grin from Rin and a wave of the hand from Kakashi. The nervous look on Iruka's face dissipated a little at Kakashi's acknowledgement. During the first few months of the younger boy's stay at her house, he'd been bullied (despite the loss of his parents, the little shits) for living with the 'monster fox'. Iruka eventually told Kushina, who told Kakashi, who tied a few of the runts naked to a shuriken target and proceeded to practice his aim. He didn't actually _hit_ any of them, but Rin had heard from a reliable source that those boys still hadn't stopped wetting their beds at night. Needless to say, Kakashi was now Iruka's idol.

Of course, it could have had something to do with the way Rin's transformed when she smiled, but Kushina would let Iruka figure that one out on his own.

She hefted Naruto in her arms a bit. She'd just fed him some mashed up pumpkin, which gave her time to drop Iruka off, have a talk with Sarutobi and train a bit with her son before he needed a some more food. She'd probably have to give him a bit of milk as well otherwise he'd end up screaming at her again, and when Naruto screamed at the red-haired woman, she tended to scream back.

Kushina suddenly noticed that Iruka wasn't walking alongside her anymore. "Eh?" turning around, she saw that he had come to a complete stop, looking at his feet. "Iruka-kun?"

"What if I fail?" he whispered.

Kushina burst out laughing. Iruka looked suitably offended.

"Iruka-kun, you've been training with _Kakashi_. If he says you're going to pass, you'll pass. You'd have to be an Uzumaki to fail with that sort of recommendation."

He blinked. "Wh-what?"

She grinned hard. "Uzumaki Kushina, number one ninja in surprising people. If you say I'm going to do it, I'll probably to the exact opposite just to spite you. And not even on purpose!" She flash him the peace sign.

He giggled.

"See? Feel better? Good. Now, c'mon slowpoke. You don't want to be late, do you?"

xXx

"Kushina."

"Old man."

The red-head stared at the Sandaime.

"Take a seat," he offered finally. She stayed standing.

"Where are your lackeys?"

"Lunch-break." It was half past nine. "What is it you want, Kushina?"

"She took a few steps forward and perched herself on the edge of his desk. "Well, what I really want is for the village to stop being such bigots and accept that Minato's jutsu really did work and that my son isn't a monster. But seeing as apparently even the Hokage isn't willing to protect _everyone_ in the—"

"I am trying, Kushina. And it's still not too late for me to put that law into place. That no one speak of what lives inside of Naruto. So he can grow up normally."

Kushina rolled her eyes, handing her baby over to Sarutobi. "See those marks on his cheeks, old man? Everyone knows he has them. He'll be instantly recognised as a Jinchuuriki, regardless."

"The children—"

"Will hate him without knowing why. Come on, Sarutobi, you know what kids are like. _Iruka's_ been getting crap from his classmates and that's just because he lives with my son. If the parents tell their kids to hate Naruto, they're going to do it whether they know what they're hating for or not. At least this way they _do_ know and when they're older and out of their parents control they'll be able to make an informed decision."

"An informed decision may result in Naruto growing up alone, Kushina."

"I'd rather have him grow up alone than in a life based on lies. I won't have my family's sacrifice hidden as if it were something to be ashamed of."

Sarutobi was looking down at the baby in his arms with a small smile on his face. At least, he was, until Naruto decided it'd be a fun idea to stick his fingers up the Sandaime's nose. Kushina watched on, amused, as the most powerful shinobi in Konoha was defeated by a six month old brat. She waited patiently until fingers had been extracted from noses (the old man really was quite childish in his retribution) before putting forth her request.

"Iruka's genin team. Who's in it and what jounin are you putting them under."

Sarutobi coughed suddenly and looked a tad guilty. "Ah…that's classified information."

Kushina snorted. "No it's not. Tell me the Uchiha wasn't in here when his demon-spawn graduated last year and I'll punch you in the mouth."

"Itachi-kun is an incredibly talented shinobi. He has already surpassed Kakashi-kun in ability and—"

"And he's touched in the head," Kushina snapped. "Look, whatever. Just tell me what team Iruka's in and I'll tell you if it's good enough for him."

"Kushina, you don't even know that Iruka-kun will pass."

"Oh, he'll pass. Stop stalling, old man."

"…very well. Iruka's team will consist of himself, Gekko Hayate and Mitarashi Anko."

"Mitarashi Anko…Oi, isn't that the girl who killed her father before the Kyuubi attacked? Bit funny in the head, isn't she?"

Sarutobi nodded. "Anko-chan was unfortunate enough to witness the murder of her mother at her father's hands. Considering the circumstances, obviously, no charges were laid."

"Hmm. And the jounin instructor?"

The Sandaime coughed awkwardly once again and Kushina felt a sudden cold chill fall over her.

"You – you're not…"

"We're low on jounin with the freedom to teach. It was the only way."

"I don't _believe _this!" The red-head yelled. "I don't freakin' _believe_ this! Old man, you know he's up to something!"

"Everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves, Kushina. You of all people should understand that."

"Not at the expense of other people, they don't. Damn it, Sarutobi, these are children we're talking about! They're _impressionable_. We were just talking about this!"

"Kushina—"

"Five months ago you made me legal guardian of Iruka-kun. I accepted that and all it entails, meaning that I will protect him like my son. If you insist on having Orochimaru lead his genin team, I will go down to the Academy right now and pull him out of that exam."

"He would hate you for that, Kushina."

"I'd rather have him hate me than idolise Orochimaru. So long as I live, Sarutobi. That's what I promised."

Her words hung in the air. The Sandaime closed his eyes and sighed.

"There is no one else, Kushina. If you could find me a jounin with enough free time who is powerful enough to teach, then I would have them take Iruka's team. But there is no one else."

"Uh…hello? Remember me?" She waved her hand in his face.

Sarutobi started to laugh. "Kushina, I can't even begin to state the flaws in that idea."

She frowned. "What's wrong with it? I've been looking after children for years. If the Village didn't need me in other ways I'd probably apply to teach at the Academy."

"Your skills are limited, even as a jounin. You really should have been made a tokubetsu jounin, but you're just too fast."

Kushina rolled her eyes. "I know, old man. I was there at the exam, remember? Which, incidentally, was three years ago. Don't you think I've improved in that time? Jiraiya's been helping me out. I'm getting better at controlling my chakra every day."

"Every day?"

She pouted. "Every week then. Whatever. Point is, I'm still a jounin, and leading a team isn't about teaching new jutsu, it's about teaching genin how to work efficiently as a real ninja. I just have to be able to recognise skills and know how they can be used. And you know I can do that, old man."

"Even so, Kushina, you have a child to think of."

"Eh? You mean Naruto? Sarutobi, I took him on that A-class mission last week and he was fine. In fact, he actually helped! The idiots wouldn't take me seriously, so I managed to kill three of 'em before they'd even blinked."

"There were only three targets in that mission, Kushina," Sarutobi said slowly, more than a little shocked.

The red-head grinned. "There you go then!"

"You…took you son on an A-class mission."

"What did you expect me to do, old man? Leave him here? He'd be killed three times before I got ten steps out of the gate."

"And you think he'd be safer with you on an _A-class mission?_"

"Like I said, Jiraiya's helping out. I've been sparring against him, first with Naruto on my back and then with him in my arm. The one time he got hurt, the Nine-Tails chakra healed him up within an hour."

The Sandaime Hokage stared.

Kushina gave him a small smile. "Come on. Do you honestly think I'd put my son in any danger I couldn't get him out of? I can lead this team, Hokage-sama." She used his title to show just how serious she was. "Especially Anko. She needs help that Orochimaru can't give her."

"The Village won't like you leading a team."

"The Village won't care. You've got a team made up of a prankster orphan, a sick orphan and a crazy orphan. No bloodline limit, no powerful connections, just three children who are going to latch onto the closest thing to a parental figure as soon as one gets near. Do you really want that person to be Orochimaru?"

Sarutobi looked down at the baby cradled in his arms. Naruto was staring up at him with Minato's big blue eyes.

"Very well," he said softly. "A copy of the children's file will be sent to you by six o'clock tonight. I shall inform Orochimaru that he will no longer have to supervise a genin team."

"He'll be delighted, I'm sure," Kushina drawled, taking her baby back and hopping off the desk. "I'm off to train with Naruto then." She pause as she reached the door and looked back. "Old man?"

He grunted.

"Thank you."

xXx

_Yay! Chapter Two! I had a lot of fun writing this one. Now, this is the point where I beg you all for reviews before I go on and start on the next chapter of Lessons In Sociability._

_Thanks for reading!_


	4. Chapter 3

_In recent manga chapters, Kushina's hair is very long and that's all I'm saying. For the sake of this fic, she cut it after Minato died. Her clothes are rather frumpy, but it's hard to wear what I'm about to explain when you're pregnant. So there._ _Right, in the following link (copy, paste, take out the spaces and replace the (dot)) are the clothes that Kushina wears when she's not pregnant._

_http://__ kunoichi-san (dot) deviantart (dot) com / art / Kushina – 63853880_

_Her Konoha forehead protector, however, is attached to the fishnet and thus worn around her neck. She wears gloves like Sakura's on missions to protect her hands (she's a taijutsu master, punches very fast), not the armwarmers and the Konoha symbol is embroidered in orange on the back._

_Lastly, she's got two very beautiful anklets that Minato bought for her and then justu'd them so they were really, really heavy. Because of Kushina's speed, she can't actually walk at a normal pace unless she's weighed down. She forgets just how fast she can be. And she generally walks about barefoot._

_Most of this will be explained in the prequel, but that won't be posted for a long time._

xXx

Kushina clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, hair obscuring her face as she let her head drop forward. Her chakra pathways burned as she blinked away sudden tears of pain.

"It's just – one – damn – weapon summons!"

Naruto started to wail.

"Ah…shit," she panted. "Kakashi, bring the kid here, would you?"

Wordlessly the young jounin moved towards her as she shoved the sweat-darkened hair back off her face and tied it up in a sort of messy bun. Kakashi knelt down next to her and handed the screaming child to her before flopping into an easy cross legged position next to her.

Kushina blinked swaying slightly as she looked down at her crying son and saw two of him. Deftly, Kakashi snatched Naruto back from her with one arm and using the other, caught her around the shoulders and gently lowered her until she was stretched out on the ground.

Naruto, possibly out of shock at being grabbed so fast, most likely out of vertigo, had stopped crying.

Kushina cracked a grin, but it was fairly obvious to Kakashi that she was choking back more tears. This was usually the part where the _real_ pain kicked in.

"Guess I overdid it, huh?" she croaked, trying to figure out which of the two and a half Kakashi's was the real one. The woman winced, feeling a sharp pain in her ribs.

The other jounin caught the expression and sighed. "You cracked a rib again, didn't you? I'd say 'overdid' is an understatement. Why did you try so hard, Kushina?"

She was nee-chan to both Iruka and Rin now and Naruto, of course, could not yet speak. Kakashi was the only one of her brood who didn't use a suffix when speaking to her, but it was hard to think of him in the same light as the other three. He was too old for her to be a mother-figure, what with only a six year age difference between them and she wasn't enough of a nagger to be a sister to him.

_It's a sad day when your best friend is a fifteen year old man._

Man, because Kakashi had seen so much, done so much, killed so much that the word boy could never be used in relation to him again.

"I…may have messed with the truth a bit when I talked to the old man."

It was amazing how one eye could convey so much. "You lied."

"I didn't lie! I just…well, my chakra control hasn't improved as much as it could have."

Kakashi shifted Naruto around a bit in his arms, trying to figure away to carry both Kushina and the baby.

"I told you, I'm going to be a jounin instructor. I have to be able to use _some _chakra."

"You also have to be able to walk."

"I _can_ walk, you brat!"

Kakashi sat backwards abruptly and raised his one visible eyebrow. "Do it, then."

It wasn't the cracked rib that hurt so much as every conceivable inch of her body. She'd most definitely pushed herself too far, trying to force too small amounts of chakra through her pathways.

Uzumaki Kushina had a lot of chakra. A lot as in she had been on level (alright, slightly below) Minato, but for some medically inconceivable reason she couldn't control it unless the jutsu she was using required huge masses of chakra, such as Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. In an effort to help her Minato had shown her a scroll of forbidden seals and she'd learned Tajyu Kage Bunshin with ease, but a simple weapon summons was just too difficult. It required _finesse_, of which Kushina had none.

"You're an ass," she announced.

Kakashi smiled at her from beneath his mask, eye curving. "Yes, I am. Now, hold your baby so I can carry you."

"You are _not_ carrying me!"

"I am."

"No, you're not! I'll never cook pancakes for you again!"

The younger jounin debated telling her. "I don't like pancakes," he said finally.

She gaped. "But – you—"

"Rin likes them. She'd kill me if I let her miss them and regardless of what she tells you, the woman is up and dragging me with her the moment I tell her."

"Oh? So you wouldn't come to see me if it weren't for Rin and her love of pancakes, then?"

He gave her that flat-eyed look that he was becoming so fond of. "I'm sitting here holding the demon child in one arm and about to force you into the other so I can get you to Rin. What does that tell you?"

"Don't call him the demon child," she grumbled, struggling to sit up. He placed a hand flat on her chest and pushed her back down again.

"Hold him," he ordered, holding out her baby.

It was like telling Rin to heal – she just couldn't help herself when she saw someone injured and Kushina couldn't help herself when someone asked her to hold her baby. Naruto was the only thing in the world that could distract her from the humiliation of being carried by a fifteen year old (jounin though he may have been) through the streets of Konoha and Kakashi knew it.

She gingerly reached for her son, grimacing again at the movement. The pain was dimming from a searing burn every time she moved to a dull _throb_ that hit her when she least expected it.

"Brace yourself," Kakashi told her and boy had she been wrong when she thought the pain had lessened, because suddenly he'd picked her up and her whole _body_ was on fire. She let out a strangled moan, head lolling to the side but she held tight onto her baby despite the stabbing pain, because she'd suffer through it for an eternity before she even thought about dropping him.

"You need to eat more. You're too small." He'd started moving.

Kushina cracked open an eye to stare at Kakashi. "I was…a premature…baby. I don't…_get_…any bigger than—" She sucked in a deep breath, rolling under the pain. "—this."

"You could always grow outwards."

"Not…desirable."

"Hmm. And I don't suppose you would be either, although you're not much to look at now." He winked.

"Respect your elders!" Kushina wheezed as that dull throb set back in. Naruto shifted irritably in her arms and she swore a blue streak at the renewed burn. _This is getting ridiculous. Surely I didn't push myself _that_ hard._

"Respect is earned," Kakashi said shortly. The red-haired woman blinked at his sudden serious tone. "When you gain enough maturity to know when you've pushed your limits, then maybe I'll respect you."

_Ouch._

Kushina stared up at him in wide-eyed silence. Then she grinned. "_You _are really worried."

"I'm not."

She summoned up the energy to poke him in the chest. "Yes, you are. You never tell me off."

"You're twenty-one years old. You shouldn't _need _telling off."

"Minato was twenty-six and I told him off all the time."

"Sensei was a genius and geniuses are crazy. Look at Orochimaru. You're allowed to tell them off for the safety of mankind in general."

She glared suspiciously up at him, absently pulling Naruto's thumb from his mouth. "Did you just compare my lover to _Orochimaru_?"

Kakashi shrugged, a remarkable feat at the speed he was running. "I also called him a genius?"

"You also called him crazy."

"Are you disagreeing?"

It was nice, being able to talk to Kakashi about Minato. Everyone else just sort of tiptoed around the edges, nudging at the wound and making it bleed more. Kakashi burnt right through, and in the process, helped to cauterize that gaping hole

"Kami, Kakashi, what did you _do _to her?"

That was Rin's voice. Kushina hadn't even noticed they'd made their way through the streets, let alone to Kakashi and Rin's apartment. In fact, now that she thought about it, she'd been ignoring the pain in favour of the conversation and now it had settled down to a manageable level.

"She did it to herself. Cracked rib, I think. You've got twenty minutes to make her better."

"Don't you be giving me orders, Hatake Kakashi! Just because—"

"Just because the school day ends in half an hour and Iruka will be graduating," Kakashi interject smoothly. Mind still a tad hazy, Kushina didn't really notice.

"Oh, fuck me," Rin sighed. "I almost forgot. Iruka would have_ killed_ me."

"Watch your mouth, young lady," Kushina reprimanded, looking slightly ridiculous from her position in Kakashi's arms. Naruto giggled.

It was a little known fact that Rin had one of the dirtiest mouths in Konoha, something she'd picked up after Obito's death. Little known, because unless you were a certain Sannin, it didn't do to be swearing at your patients so Rin had bought the habit under control. Also because Kushina had a tendency to throw kitchen implements at, or (the horror) withhold pancakes from Rin when she swore in front of Naruto.

"Old enough to kill, old enough to swear," the girl countered.

"I thought that saying was about drinking?" Kushina mumbled as Kakashi walked inside the apartment and set her gently down on the couch.

"It's adaptable," Rin retorted, picking up Naruto and handing him to Kakashi "Now then, let's see what you've done to yourself this time."

"That's it," she grumbled as Rin softly tugged her top up to reveal her stomach "I'm getting a new outfit." The tugging and pulling _hurt._

"Try for something less orange," Rin said.

"Buttons," Kakashi suggested.

Rin didn't talk after that, concentrating on the healing. Instead, Kakashi pulled up a chair beside her, bouncing Naruto on his knee absently.

"I've been thinking about working on Chidori some more," he told her.

She frowned. "I thought you perfected that move when Obito gave you his eye." Like Kakashi didn't mess about when it came to Minato, she had never tiptoed around Obito.

"Well, yes. But I think it could be improved."

Kushina ran over the chracteristics of her friend's technique in her head. "More control," she said finally, to which he raised an eyebrow. She caught the look and grinned. "I spent a lot of time with Minato, Kakashi. I might not be able to manipulate chakra or nature, but I still know a lot about how to do it. Minato thought if I knew every inch of the theory I might be able to put it into practice."

"Why didn't it worked?"

Kushina shrugged, sighing happily at the lack of pain the gesture brought. "There's something wrong with my chakra pathways. Tsunade was looking into it, but then Dan died and…well, we all know what happened from there." The woman shifted slightly, only to be swatted back to her previous position by Rin. "Damnit. Ah well. So what exactly is your plan of action with gaining control over Chidori then?"

Kakashi looked speculatively up at the ceiling, trying to maintain nonchalance but the red-haired woman could see the excited spark in his eye.

"More."

She stared. "More what?"

"More chakra. Better nature manipulation. I have this theory that if I can concentrate enough of it, I'll be able to split an actual bolt of lightning in have."

She stared more. "Kakashi, that's impossible. You'd blow yourself up."

"I know. Been trying to get around that bit."

"You're trying to get around the fact that you'd blow yourself up," Kushina dead-panned.

"Yep. Thought maybe if I talked it out it'd start making more sense."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"Kushina-neechan, stop _moving_," Rin growled. "I'm almost finished, but if you don't stop wriggling I'm going to end up breaking your rib instead of healing it."

The older woman rolled her eyes and instead occupied herself with pulling ridiculous faces at her son until Rin sat back with a sigh.

"Alright, you'll ache a bit, but if I try anymore—"

"My body will forget how to heal itself, I've heard this lecture how many times before now let's go! If we don't hurry, Iruka will come out and we won't be there!"

xXx

"Kushina-neechan! Kushina-neechan! I did it!" Iruka's widely grinning face appeared, shiny new forehead protector tied firmly in place, followed by the rest of him. He ran towards the group of four ready to meet him and barrelled into Kushina, hugging her tightly. She grinned down at him and ruffled his hair, messing up his ponytail.

"'Course you did, brat. We all knew it, see? Everyone's here. But it's not over yet. You and your team mates will have to pass the test given to you by your jounin instructor first, so you'd better get some sleep tonight!"

"Sleep? I've got to train!"

Kakashi dropped a hand on Iruka's shoulder. "Trust me, kid. With the jounin you've been assigned to, no amount of training is going to do you any good." His hand tightened slightly letting the boy know he'd done good.

"You know who my sensei is?" Iruka exclaimed, slightly giddy with Kakashi's approval. "But that information's meant to be secret!"

Jiraiya laughed. "There's no such thing as a secret, Iruka-brat. C'mon, we're going out to celebrate."

Iruka turned expectantly to Rin, who still hadn't said anything.

She smiled softly at him and winked. "Good job, Iruka-kun. We're all proud of you."

Iruka's grin widened.

xXx

_I just stumbled across an Itachi/HINATA fic. Like, how do you even begin to think of that sort of thing? I think I'm scarred for life. _

_You know something that I find very strange? How people describe Kakashi's eye when he smiles as "an upside down 'u'"_

_Like, isn't that an 'n'? ununununun._

_Jeez. I just use half moon or curved. The letters have and always shall stay out of it._

_I'm rambling. The latest chapter of Naruto rocked my world._

_Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter of Reset, and remember! Reviews equal motivation and motivation equals writing which equals updates!_


	5. Chapter 4

_**Important: **__Anko's character is based on the idea that she was messed up before Orochimaru got to her. She had to see her father kill her mother and then she killed him. I know she was more subdued/afraid when Orochimaru was her sensei, but I would that was because Orochimaru was her sensei. Seeing as the snake-raper is not going to be her sensei, I'm making her a very broken little girl who knows she's broken and doesn't care._

xXx

Kushina flopped into Minato's chair, exhausted. She'd prevented two food fights before giving up and initiating the third. Naruto had managed to push himself up onto his hands and knees which had called for much fussing and photos. Although, seeing as the boy had collapsed three seconds later they didn't have any pictures of the actual event, but that didn't really matter.

Then Rin had made a comment about how Obito would have loved to see it and as a result boxed up for the rest of the evening. Jiraiya had disappeared to who knew where, but he'd put the baby down before he left, so Kushina wasn't too angry. Iruka was in bed but probably not sleeping, excited as he was about finally making genin.

Kushina glanced over at the front door as Kakashi undid the protection jutsu and slipped inside. He wandered over to her and dropped himself gracelessly on the ground, kunai in hand.

"Is Rin okay?" the red-head asked.

The other jounin pulled out a whetstone and started to sharpen the weapon. "Swearing less," he said simply, then frowned. At least, that's what she thought he did, it was hard to tell sometimes. "She said something about getting her hair cut. I told her she wasn't out on the field enough to bother about it. I think she wants to try for jounin."

Kushina relaxed into the chair, enjoying the fleeting memories that washed over her. "You got this from a comment about cutting her hair?"

"No. I got it from the comment she made after about maybe trying out for jounin."

She leaned over and swatted him on the head. "Tell her to try for tokubetsu jounin first if she tries at all, and not for another year at least."

He yawned. "Did it already. She's not crazy enough to be a jounin."

She leaning over again and poked him. "Nah, you're worried about her."

"That too," he admitted. Kushina was so shocked she almost toppled out of the chair and on top of him. "What?"

"Kakashi, you _do_ have a heart," she teased.

He rolled his eye. "Don't speak like that," he ordered. "You're too old."

She stuck her tongue and crossed her eyes before punching him in the arm. "What is it with you and my age, sprat? Six years isn't much of an age difference."

"So don't call me sprat," he retorted. Kushina couldn't be bothered thinking of something to say response so she pulled herself back up into Minato's chair and closed her eyes. She could almost hear his voice, sitting there.

"Do you really not respect me?" she said finally.

Kakashi blinked at her. "What?"

"This morning. When you were going on about earning respect."

"I never said I didn't respect you."

"You intimated it."

"I intimate many things," he replied, pulling out another kunai and setting to work on it. "I hardly ever know what I'm talking about."

"So you _do_ respect me."

"Didn't say that either." He scratched the back of his head. "So what kind of test are you going to give the brats?"

Kushina blinked. "Test?"

He rolled his eye. "You haven't thought about this at all, have you?"

"I was sort of only concentrating on getting the kids away from Orochimaru. What's this about a test?"

"It's to see who becomes genin and who has to stay at the Academy for another year, or give up. They only take three teams. Well, that's the average. Sometimes they have to take more, or less."

Kushina frowned. "I never had to do something like that. Once you graduated you were genin. That's really mean!"

He shrugged. "The Lake Village was a lot smaller than Konoha."

"Hmm. We needed all the shinobi we could get. Not that it did any good." She paused. "So, this test thing. Got any ideas?"

He pulled out yet another kunai. "Sure."

xXx

Gekko Hayate was seven years old when the medics said he was never going to get better.

His mother called him a fool for wanting to be a ninja.

His father had given him a sword.

The part of him that loved his mother wouldn't let him name the blade. The part of him that loved his father asked to be trained.

But he entered the Academy on his own and came out the same way.

On his own.

He quite liked the idea of being a part of a team, right up until the moment he found out who was on it.

Umino Iruka, who lived with the demon child.

Mitrashi Anko, who killed her own father.

The part of him who loved his late mother despaired. The part of him who loved his late father would persevere.

Hayate wasn't sure what he himself was going to do yet.

xXx

After The Event, Anko had tried her best to pretend as if nothing had ever happened. That was what a ninja was meant to do, wasn't it? Rule number twenty-five; a shinobi must never show their tears.

Only, people didn't like that and thus, by attempting to be 'all-there', Anko had proven herself to be the opposite.

A girl just couldn't win. You weren't allowed to break down, but you were meant to do it anyway. They told you one set of rules and expected you to play by others.

So Anko decided to hell with people and made her own rules, locking away that part of her that wouldn't stop crying and loosing the laughter.

There was that one man who understood, one of the Sannin. He'd seen her laughing at her foot, the one with a kunai through it. And it was funny – there she was, meant to graduating and she'd stepped on a kunai.

He'd sat down and asked her if it hurt and when she'd said know he asked her why. She shrugged, laughed some more and yanked the kunai out.

_Where are you parents, _he'd asked as she ripped her shirt with her teeth and bound the wound.

_Dead. _And she laughed a little more.

_Do you want revenge?_

She'd blinked up at the stranger, that too-pretty man. _I did that already. Where are your parents?_

And it had been his turn to laugh then. _Also dead._

_Do you want revenge?_

_I'm working on it, little girl._

She hadn't laughed then. In fact, she'd glared at him and spat at his feet. _You're stupid._

If there was one thing Mitarashi Anko had learned in her eleven years, it was that after revenge, there was nothing else.

And now she was stuck in a team that she didn't want with two brats who didn't know that. She could see it now – one of them would die and the other would get revenge and she'd be there on the sidelines laughing.

Because it was far better to laugh than to cry.

_Rule number twenty-five. A shinobi must never show their tears._

xXx

It would be a lie – a big lie – to say Iruka wasn't afraid. Terrified. About to wet his pants, even.

Gekko wasn't so bad, although Iruka got the feeling the sick boy didn't like him very much. But he hadn't been one of the boys Kakashi had practiced with, so that placed him firmly in Iruka's Not Bad column.

Mitarashi, however, wasn't destined for the Not Bad column.

Or the Good column, or the Bad column or the People I Can't Figure Out column (like Rin-san).

Mitarashi belonged to the Terrifying column, like Kushina-nee-chan when she caught Jiraiya-san peeping.

Or Rin-san when Kakashi made her late for pancakes.

Which in a way was really sad, because he'd sort of liked her before she went crazy and he'd been pretty sure she'd sort of liked him back. But it was _worse _than when the other two fell into that column, because Mitarashi was like that _all the time_. So Iruka did what he usually did these days when he was scared out of his mind – pulled a prank.

It wasn't a very good prank, but it calmed his nerves a little as he and the other two members of Team Four waited for their jounin sensei to arrived.

Gekko coughed his way through a sentence or two as Iruka went to put the duster on the top of the door. "I don't think that's a very good idea. You'll make our sensei angry and he might refuse to train us."

Mitarashi started laughing. Iruka fetched another duster.

The door opened and before he could see who it was the dusters had been caught out of the air and thrown at him. He coughed as bad as Gekko, batting at the chalk in the air with his eyes squeezed shut.

"Nowhere near your usual skill, Iruka-kun. I'm almost ashamed."

He knew that voice. _He knew that voice._ "Kushina-nee-chan!" His eyes flew open and he thanked whatever he was meant to be thanking that the chalk had settled down so he could see her properly.

She was standing right into front of them, baby Naruto dangling from a special sling on her back. Throwing a peace sign at him, his guardian grinned. "Surprise!" Kushina turned to the other two and squinted. "I'm Uzumaki Kushina. So you must be Gekko Hayate." She pointed. "And Mitarashi Anko" She pointed again.

Mitarashi pointed back. "You're going to die."

Kushina laughed and Iruka had the dubious pleasure of seeing the crazy girl look shocked for the first time since The Event. "So are you, Anko-chan. It's my job to make sure that doesn't happen too soon."

Mitarashi looked even more shocked at being called Anko-chan.

"Can you train us?" Gekko coughed, sounding sceptical. "I heard that you can't perform ninjutsu or genjutsu."

"It's not my job to train you, Hayate-kun , it's my job to teach you."

"You're a nut," Mitarashi accused. "You have a sick orphan, and idiot orphan and me. Who volunteers for that?"

One of Kushina's eyebrow shot up. "Bit rich, you calling anyone crazy Anko-chan."

The girl's eyes widened to the size Kushina's pancake-pans and Iruka waited for her to start laughing.

Only, she didn't.

"I'm not crazy," she said finally. "I just have different rules."

"Oh, you sound just like me when I was your age. You'll have to change that attitude a little bit if you want to make it to jounin though, Anko-chan. They only let the crazies in." She winked.

Iruka's head yoyo-ed back to Mitarashi, who thought about that for a long time before smiling.

And it wasn't the smile with the edge, the one that said 'I-don't-know-what-I'm-going-to-do-next-but-you-won't-like-it', but an actual smile.

It was sort of nice.

xXx

From behind her own smile, Kushina was cursing to the high heavens and wishing frantically that Minato was with her.

Of course, it wasn't the first time she'd wished that, but this time it didn't have anything – well, anything _much_ – to do with her missing him. She needed her patience and she needed it fast.

_Kakashi is going to laugh at you if you mess up these kids, Uzumaki, _she thought which was immediately with _how much more messed up can they _get

Kushina may not have thought the job through before she offered her services, but she took comfort in the fact that at least she couldn't do any worse than Orochimaru.

She hoped.

"All right, brats, this is where we part ways. I'll meet up with you tomorrow at one. Don't eat breakfast, but a pack a lunch and your killing intent."

xXx

_I'm so sorry for the late update, but I went on holiday and, and, and…_

_Yeah, that's actually all I have. I'll try to update faster, I promise, but this is sort of my most recent fic so it has less priority. I'm really sorry._

_But, uh, review anyway? Pwetty pwease?_

_Lord, am I a sad, sad girl._


	6. Chapter 5

_Just a note to the reviewer who asked – intimate has several meanings, but the one I was using was 'suggest'. So Kakashi was really saying 'I suggest many things' not 'I personal many things'._

_Right! The Stage is coming along nicely, For Truth is coming along nicely and Reset…is not. But a slow update for me is anything that exceeds two weeks so I'll try to get another chapter up before I head back to school._

xXx

"Uzumaki-san."

Kushina turned around in surprise at hearing her family name, just barely managed to keep a grip on Naruto as he squirmed irritably.

"Mikoto-san!"

The other jounin smiled and ducked her head. "How are you?"

"Great, thanks." _Oh, this isn't awkward at all. _"I'm just off to the training grounds to meet with my genin team." She put Naruto over her shoulder and stared to jiggle him a bit.

Kushina caught the look of shock on Mikoto's face before it flitted away. "With your son?"

"Who would I leave him with, Mikoto-san? Unless you're willing to let the demon child near your precious Sasuke." She hadn't meant to sound bitter, but she couldn't help it.

Mikoto flushed and her head dropped again. "I…Minato always thought the best of people. I think he had more faith in this Village than we warranted. I would like you to know, Uzumaki-san, that if it were up to me—"

"But it's not up to you, Mikoto-san, so don't tell me the what if's. For the sake of Naruto and my sanity, I can only know the absolutes." Her son burped and giggled happily. Kushina held him up in the air and cooed at him.

"You have grown up wonderfully, Uzumaki-san," the woman said. "Minato would be so proud of you."

"I don't want him to be proud," she replied softly, creating an impromptu chair with her arms and leaning Naruto against her chest, chubby legs dangling over. "I just want him to be _here_. If he had lived, people would listen. People would see, and our son wouldn't have to grow up alone."

Mikoto hesitated. "I will not encourage my children as the others will. As much as I can, I will attempt to stay Fugaku's rage against Naruto-kun. This much I can give you."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Mikoto. I can see the fear in your eyes when you look at Naruto."

"I do not fear your son. I fear what is inside him. But I trust Minato and his jutsu. I feel the fear, Uzumaki-san and I will try my best to surpass it."

Kushina's relationship with Mikoto had been pleasant before Minato's death, if not simple. She'd known from the moment she saw Minato and the older woman together that Mikoto was in love with him. He had been oblivious, of course.

She had always marvelled at how her lover had held so much dangerous, deadly knowledge in his head yet still be so – well. She wouldn't call it stupid, but Minato hadn't known all that much about people. If he had, he probably would have been more reluctant to seal the Kyuubi in their son.

Kushina sighed. "Had circumstances been different—"

"They were not. The same as you, I cannot deal in what if's. My future was decided the moment it became apparent Minato was in love with you." She hesitated. "I love my husband."

Kushina refused to feel guilty. "For what it's worth, Mikoto I know he thought highly of you."

The look on Mikoto's face was full of old pain. "It is worth more than you think, yet still not enough." A pause. "I must take my leave, and your genin team will worry, Uzumaki-san."

She snorted. "I doubt that, Mikoto-san."

The older woman started to walk away, then stopped. "Uzumaki-san."

"Yes?"

"Please do not hate my children for who their father is. I know the two of you do not get along and – as much as I love him, I love my children more."

"If I hate anyone, Mikoto-san, it will be on their own merits. Unlike the rest of this Village."

Naruto started to cry.

xXx

When Hatake wandered into Training Ground Three, Anko burst out laughing, ignoring the terrified looks she received from her teammates.

Hatake Kakashi, the most successful disaster in Konoha. The irony of his entire situation was delicious.

The jounin blinked at her before his eye curled into a crescent that obviously said he was smiling beneath the mask. She didn't even see the kunai until it whizzed past her ear.

The three genin stared. Hatake kept grinning.

"Kakashi, don't terrorize the children too much."

It was that _woman_. Uzumaki Kushina, her jounin sensei, the one that Anko didn't know what to think about and wasn't sure whether or not to laugh at.

Because her story was worse than Anko's. Anko's was _funny_ – after all, her father definitely hadn't expected an eleven year old girl to put a kunai through his head. But there was no irony, no funny angle with what had happened to Uzumaki.

Except that she survived. And now Anko thought about it, that was pretty damn funny.

xXx

Kushina felt like going over to the nearest tree and smacking her head against it several times as Anko started to laugh again.

She looked over at Kakashi, whose eye creased further. "Don't you have a mission to be on?" she asked irritably.

"Assassination. Did it. Thought I'd watch you screw the kids into jounin crazy for a bit."

"You have no faith," she complained.

"None," he agreed amiably. "I'll be in that tree."

She shook her head and turned to the kids. Hayate was coughing, Anko was laughing and Iruka looked terrified.

"Right then." She handed Naruto to Iruka and strapped on her arm guards before taking her son back and holding up two bells. "Your job is to come at me with killing intent and get these." She was basically repeating what Kakashi had suggested verbatim.

Anko stopped laughing. Hayate's hand twitched and Iruka looked horrified.

"If you don't come at me with killing intent, you won't get the bells and if you don't get the bells you won't become genin. Or get lunch. Seriously, the food you brought is out of bounds until I say so. Now you have a minute or so to get into position. I suggest you use it." She shifted Naruto in her arms.

Anko and Hayate disappeared. Iruka stayed where he was.

"Kushina-nee-chan," he said softly. "I don't want to hurt you."

_Here comes the serious stuff._

"That's part of what being a ninja is, Iruka-kun. Doing things you don't want to."

He screwed his face up in thought but it was obvious he didn't get it. Kushina sighed and shook her head.

"Look, Iruka, it doesn't really matter does it? I'm a jounin – you're not going to be able to lay a finger on me, let alone do any damage." Naruto giggled. "Now, go find somewhere to hide."

"But that means—"

"Go!" she laughed.

He went.

The hope for this team lay in Iruka, although none of them knew it. He wasn't an exceptional melee fighter like Hayate or a brilliant ranged fighter like Anko, but he was a genius at two things they hadn't even thought about.

Strategy and tactics. If anyone could figure out what she was trying to teach them, it was Iruka.

_There_.

She threw out an arm, the other balancing Naruto precariously on her hip as Anko's kunai clanged off the guard.

"Too slow!" she cried, side-stepping to avoid the spray of shuriken that followed up on the kunai. She spun and caught Hayate's katana on the same guard that had deflected the kunai, shrugging Naruto into the sling on her back before she punched her student in the head, knocking him out and grabbing the sword as she did so.

Somewhere in the trees, Anko started laugh again. She dodged another volley of shuriken from the girl.

It went on like that for the next hour. Hayate woke up on to find himself without his katana and few jutsu that didn't need it to play off. Anko threw kunai and shuriken, ducking out of the trees surprisingly fast to pick them up again when she ran out. There was the odd projectile from Iruka, but other than that he stayed invisible.

Kushina grinned as she heard Anko laughing once more. At least someone else was having fun. No doubt she'd found Kakashi in his tree.

It was nearing lunch time and still none of them had figured it out. She was starting to worry that she'd have to fail them.

_Ah, well. _If it came to that, it came to that. Kushina flopped cross-legged to the ground and swung Naruto into her arms before reaching into the one of the pouches hanging from her belt and pulling out a kunai.

"Oops," she muttered "Wrong pouch."

Second time lucky and she got the right pouch, taking out the small jar of mashed pumpkin and a spoon. Her foot was carefully placed to leap away in case the midgets attacked, and thus prepared, she started to feed her baby.

xXx

Iruka had spent the last hour thinking.

There was no way he would be able to touch Kushina-nee-chan. Even with the weighted anklets she wore all the time, she was faster than he was.

So, there had to be some sort of trick to it. Something he was missing, because he knew his big sister wouldn't set them some impossible task

His stomach growled. She also hadn't let him have breakfast that morning. Iruka hadn't really been expending that much energy, distracted as he was, but he knew the others had. Especially Mitarashi, and he didn't put it past her to steal it anyway and who knew what Kushina-nee-chan would do then?

He raced towards the clearing where those logs that they'd left their food on were. He was almost there when it hit him.

Mitarashi was a ranged combatant.

Gekko was melee.

And Iruka himself was good at the thinking thing.

They had to work _together_.

"Mitarashi, wait!" he cried, bursting into the clearing just as the purple-haired girl reached out for her bento.

There was a sharp whistle as two kunai whipped over his head, a length of nin-wire tied to the ends. The kunai went wide of Mitarashi, but the force of the wire pushed her back against the log. Iruka watched, wide-eyed, as the kunai then wrapped around the log several times before they ran out of wire and thunked into the log.

He expected the girl to start laughing, but she didn't, big brown eyes staring in shock at him.

Or behind him, as he discovered when it was Kushina-nee-chan who started to laugh walking around him and sauntering over to the trapped girl.

"Looks like you underestimated me, brat. Hayate!" she barked, tossing the katana at her belt left. There was a rustle of branches as Gekko scrambled to get it.

"Right then, I guess we can take a break," the jounin said. Iruka blinked as Naruto's head appeared over her shoulder and giggled at him. "Iruka, Hayate, you two can have lunch. I have to talk with Kakashi, so I'll be back in about ten minutes." She started to walk away. "Oh, and brats? If you feed Anko, you'll be stuck in the Academy for another year." She walked away.

Mitarashi kicked the log with her heel. "This isn't funny."

Iruka grinned at her. He felt a lot braver, what with her being tied up and all.

She hissed at him.

"Don't do that," he cautioned. "If you do, I won't feed you."

Her eyes widened. "Eh?"

Gekko coughed. "Umino, she'll find out."

"I doesn't really matter," he shrugged, reaching for Mitarashi's bento. "Either way, I'll be going back to the Academy, because I can't get a bell off her by myself. We have to work together and with the way Mitarashi's been running around, she's not going to have enough energy to help. So—" He broke off upon seeing the contents of the purple-haired girl's lunch. "Dango? Only dango?"

"It's good," she growled. "Gimme."

Obligingly, he held the stick up to her and hoped like hell she wouldn't bite his fingers.

She didn't.

Gekko spoke up again. "But there are only two bells. Someone's going to go back to the Academy anyway."

Iruka took a bite of the dango himself, ignoring Mitarashi's growl. He was getting kind of sick of pancakes. "I just figured that out. Kushina-nee-chan moves real fast, and she didn't even take off the weights. I don't think anyone except Yondaime-sama was ever able to catch up to her. So basically, we don't have a hope in hell of getting one of those bells."

"We could wait until she's tired."

"Nah. Her stamina goes on forever. You think baby Naruto is always that cute?" He gave Mitarashi some more food.

"Cute? He's the—"

Iruka didn't know he was capable of moving so fast until he had the kunai at Gekko's throat. "Don't say it," he told the sick boy calmly. "He's _not_. You won't believe me, but he's _not._"

"I believe you."

Iruka turned to stare at Mitarashi, arm falling back to his side.

"Well, you're still alive, aren't you?"

And she started laughing.

Iruka and Gekko looked at each other, Mitarashi's laughter fading to the background.

"Here," Gekko said suddenly, shoving aside his lunch. "I'll do it. You've got better eyes then me, so you look out."

Iruka grinned, nodding. "Mm!"

"Well, I should probably draw this out for a bit longer and scare the living daylights out of you, but I really can't be bothered."

All three of them jumped as Kushina-nee-chan was suddenly _there_.

She yawned, shifting baby Naruto so he was sitting in the cradle of her arms. "Teamwork. It's real important, remember it or else it'll come back and bite you in the arse." Then she grinned and it was like the world lighting up. Iruka loved his nee-chan's smile. "You all pass, brats."

xXx

_Finally! I loved writing this chapter, but it did take forever and a half._

_Anyway, this here marks the end of the introductory chapters. I'll be getting more into plot as this goes on. Expect action in the next chapter!_

_Thanks for reading!_


	7. Chapter 6

_Alright. So basically, Kushina's appearance contrasts directly with the manga. Um…I don't care. When I designed her for this story, she was a premature baby, which made her really short. I really like my Kushina, and most things don't poke at the manga so please don't hit me? (By the way, is 5'2" really that short? I can't quite tell because (a) I have no sense of distance in any way shape or form and (b) I'm 5'8". Anything below 5'6" constitutes short for me)_

_Making the assumption Jiraiya was about 50 when we met him, he's around 39 now. Creepy, huh? Hard to imagine him younger._

_Anyway. Most of the things that Naruto does are based off my darling baby cousin Lukas, who just turned seven months the other day! And also tipped over and hit his head on a chair in celebration. He's the cutest damn kid you ever did see. _

_GOOD GOD! 386, PEOPLE! ITACHI IS _SHOWING EMOTION! _Also, Uchiha Madara? I think I've fallen in love with his hair._

xXx

"You're the idiot who wants revenge," Anko said, squinting up at the too-pretty man. "Whadya want with me?"

He laughed, that raspy cackle that made _her_ want to laugh from its sheer ridiculousness. "Just to talk. You interest me, Mitarashi-chan."

She glared at him. "How do you know my name?"

"Everyone knows your name, Mitarashi-chan. Nobody cares, but everyone knows."

"So?" She jerked her chin up and glared harder. "I don't care that no one cares!"

"Not even your team?"

She glanced involuntarily over her shoulder at Uzumaki who was fending of both Gekko and Umino with her feet as she fed her brat. Anko had already managed to land a hit so she could sit out. It was a pretty good system – the one who needed the least help got out first and it became increasingly more difficult to land a hit so the one who needed the most help got a longer workout.

"Give up, Umino!" she yelled as Gekko finally scored a hit. They all knew Uzumaki was going easy on them, but it was still a thrill to watch the blood curl down her arm – or leg, in Gekko's case. "Otherwise we'll be stuck here all night!"

"Shut up, Mitarashi!" he called back, panting.

"If you were as intelligent as you seem to think you are, Umino, you wouldn't waste your energy on responding to that," Gekko remarked.

Anko turned back to the snake-man, bored. "I don't care if they care. Don't have to like a person to be able to work with 'em." She shrugged.

"Don't you want to get stronger?"

"Sure."

"They're holding you back," he said, and his voice took on a silky tone that made her both suspicious and relaxed. "I can show you true power."

"Like the kind that got your parents killed?" she asked, then started to laugh. "What happens when you get your revenge, hmm? Then someone else tries to get their revenge and it just never ends. That's why you're so _stupid_."

He hissed at her. He _hissed_ at her.

A large hand plonked itself on top of her head and ruffled it a bit. "Ah, you don't want to be insulting Orochimaru's intelligence there, Anko-chan."

She squinted up again, hoping like hell this didn't mean she needed glasses. "You're the pervert."

He white-haired toad-man looked offended. "It's research!"

She laughed, and there was something different about it this time. Like...maybe other people would have laughed at that too.

Not that she cared, of course. Caring was for stupid people.

"Orochimaru." The toad-man's voice turned from injured to serious. "Kushina's not happy to have you here."

The too-pretty man – Orochimaru – hissed again. "She's too busy paying attention to those brats. She doesn't—"

"Yay! I got you! Take that!"

A cough. "Finally."

"What kind of jounin would I be, Orochimaru, if I didn't know when someone was trying to subvert my students?" Uzumaki flicked her sweat-dark hair out of her eyes and wandered over. She didn't look happy, tucking her kid back into his sling.

He smiled and it thoroughly freaked Anko out. She was starting to get the feeling this was not the type of man who would let her say anything she wanted and hide it behind a mask of insanity like other people did.

Although now that she thought about it, not only did Uzumaki and Hatake called her on it all the time, they _encouraged _it.

Freaks.

"Considering they were intended to be _my_ students—"

"And what does it say about you that the old man let me take them, the mother of the child who has the Kyuubi sealed in him."

It was then Anko realised just how short Uzumaki was, and how scary she could be despite that. Anko wasn't often afraid (and she wasn't now. Really), but she could see how this woman could keep even one of the Sannin in line despite being only five foot two.

"You don't want to make an enemy out of me, Kushina-_chan_."

"Orochimaru…" the pervert said, a warning hint to his voice. How many voices did this man have?

_Are there any in his head?_ Anko giggled

"Don't say my name like that, you sound like you're raping it," Uzumaki growled. "Go away." And with that, she turned around and headed towards the other two brats. It had to have been coincidence, but from his position hanging from Uzumaki's back, her kid's tongue lolled out.

Anko giggled again.

xXx

Kushina set Naruto on the ground to play with his blocks and sighed flopping into a kitchen chair.

"Geez. Who knew being a jounin sensei could be so freakin' exhausting?" she muttered. "Where do these kids get the _energy? _Although Orochimaru showing up didn't help."

To be honest, it was more mental exhaustion than physical – in the three months they had been a team (Team Kushina, as she had forgotten the number), the kids had cultivated a special sort of hatred for each other that was all the more irritating because she _knew_ they liked each other.

Hayate was too stuck up and serious, so Iruka and Anko mocked him. Anko laughed at strange things and was generally crazy (good jounin material) but instead of fearing her like they used to, long exposure had caused Iruka to laugh back and mock her while Hayate sat to the side and made sarcastic comments. As for Iruka, he still wasn't as good with weapons as the other two yet so Anko would jeer at him every time he missed and Hayate, of course, sat to the side and made sarcastic comments.

As a result, Anko had toned down on the crazy a bit and started laughing at more normal things, Hayate was being irritated into becoming more social and Iruka was being goaded into trying even harder to improve himself.

Her head thunked into the table. "And I invited them to dinner." Of course, she did it every Friday

Hayate would be early, as always. Anko would be exactly on time and Iruka wouild show up when he showed up. Most likely on time, seeing as he lived in the same house, but that boy did the _strangest_ things sometimes.

She sighed, standing up. "Guess I'd better get started then."

xXx

"See ya at dinner, Mitarashi!" Umino called, pulling his eyelid down at her.

She flipped him the bird. "You're not funny!"

"Finally, something she _doesn't _laugh at," Gekko rolled his eyes, then coughed.

"Yeah, next thing's finding something you _will_ laugh at," Anko shot back. "Freak."

He raised an eyebrow. "Me?"

"Hey, we're ninja!" Umino yelled as he headed in the direction of the Hokage mansion. "We're meant to be freaks!"

xXx

"Jiraiya!" Kushina yelled. "Jiraiya, come quick!"

From the other end of the house she heard the faint sounds of splashing and swearing before Jiraiya came tearing into the lounge, nearly tripping over his feet.

"What, what is it?" he yelled, looking around wildly, kunai in hand.

Kushina stared at him. "I suppose I should be glad you grabbed a towel," she muttered. "Where the hell did you pull that kunai from, anyway?"

Jiraiya pointedly ignored that. "Are we under attack?" he asked slowly.

She shook her head. "No, look!"

"Where?"

There was a giggle from his feet. Jiraiya blinked down in time to see Naruto zoom off, feet working like crazy. Well, it wasn't really zooming, but for a baby it was pretty damn fast.

"Whoa. Is he—" Jiraiya grinned. "What's he doing? I mean, he's moving, but what do you even call that?"

"He's a bum-shuffler," Kushina announced proudly as her kid came to a sudden stop and keeled over sideways. She laughed at him as his big blue eyes swivelled around in confusion. "Hey, bubs." She clapped her hands. "Over here!"

Jiraiya was giving her that _grin_ of his, the one that made her want to punch him in the face.

"What?" she asked irritably.

"You're acting like a _mum_," he teased.

"What are you talking about?" She walked over to her baby and scooped him up, holding him above her head. He started to blow raspberries at her.

"Oi, pass him here."

Kushina turned to gape at the Legendary Ninja. "Now who's acting like a mum?"

"I'm his godfather!" he cried indignantly.

She mock-grimaced. "Remind me not to make any decisions when I'm pregnant. It messes with my brain." He went to take Naruto off her, and she shook her head. "Put some pants on first, Jiraiya, then you can hold him."

xXx

Anko groaned, stepping out of the shower. The hot water had been turned off again.

Of course, she wouldn't have even bothered with getting, but Uzumaki insisted and after that afternoon's display she didn't want to risk getting her angry.

Although…there had to be a limit on how often a person could get that angry in a day. Right?

It was probably better not to risk it. She stepped back into the shower and leaned against the wall, allowing the icy cold water to rinse away the worst of the blood and sweat before she got to scrubbing at it.

_They're holding you back._

She scowled, grabbing a bar of soap. "I've got enough screwed up things in my head without you being in there too, thank you very much," she grumbled. "What're they holding me back from, anyway? Getting stronger?" She scrubbed harder. "I don't need to get stronger. Well. It'd be nice, but I don't have anyone to avenge. Not anymore. No reason for me to get stronger."

"_Stop it! Akio, you don't want to do this, you're drunk, you're—"_

_Screaming._

"_Tousan, _no!_"_

_More screaming._

"_Kaasan! Kaasan, wake up! Wake up!"_

_Too late._

There was a sharp sting of pain in her arm where she was scrubbing and Anko blinked down in surprise to see new red welling up past the rusty flakes of old blood.

She'd reopened the wound.

xXx

Kushina looked up from her cooking to see everyone seated at the table where they should be. Jiraiya was next to Naruto's high-chair, which was next to Kushina's empty seat. Then there was Iruka (normally Kakashi sat there, but he was out on another mission and it was generally a good idea to split the genin up) and next to him was Rin and next to _her_ was Hayate, then Kakashi's empty seat then—

Another empty seat.

Kushina frowned. "Where's Anko?"

Iruka shrugged. "Probably late. She was pretty weird when we split up."

"Mitarashi's always weird, Umino." Hayate paused to think about it, then coughed.

"Hey, hey, do you know how irritating that is, you snarking off every ten seconds? It was better when you just did that superior look thing."

"I still do that."

"Yeah, but now it has _words_."

"Anko's never late," Kushina murmured, frowning down at the food she'd served up.

"Everyone's late at least once in their lives, Kushina-nee-chan," Rin chirped. She was in a surprisingly good mood, considering that Kakashi was off on his mission for a week.

"Not Anko."

"But—"

"_Not_ Anko." It was one of the girl's crazy habits, and probably the easiest to understand. From reading her file, Kushina knew that Anko had been late home from the Academy on the day her father had killed her mother. Knowing the girl, that information had probably worked itself around her head, collecting up all sorts of guilt.

If she'd been quicker, she could have saved her.

Kushina could relate to that.

"Uh…start eating, yeah? I think I'll just wander over to her apartment and see what's keeping her," she said slowly.

Jiraiya stood. "I'll come with you."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Worried, old man?"

"I'm thirty-nine! And…no." Liar.

"If you're old enough to be my father, you're an old man in my book. Come on." She jerked her head towards the door. "Rin, feed Naruto for me?"

"You're not taking him with you?"

"Ah, we're not going that far away kiddo." Not to mention she had a really bad feeling about wherever Anko was right now and she didn't want to be involving her son.

Once the two of them got outside, Kushina bent down and unclasped one of the weighted anklets Minato had given her.

It was Jiraiya's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Just a precaution," she said in response, loosening the other enough that she would be able to kick it of if necessary. "Can you keep up, old man?"

"I'm not an old man!"

xXx

_I would love to go on. You have no idea how much I would love to go on, but then the chapter would just get way too long. I know none of you would complain about that, but I like chapters to be around equal, and having a 2000 word chapter then a 4000 word chapter is a bit strange. Plus! It means you get an earlier update!_


	8. Chapter 7

_Baby Gaara is the cutest damn thing I ever did see. Incidentally, anyone want to help me out with him? I'm trying to figure out how to un-crazy him in Reset: The Naruto Effect, because in that fic Naruto would have of course grown up with love from at least five people as opposed to the Naruto who had nothing. Any thoughts would be welcome._

_I so badly wanna get started on The Naruto Effect! I have so much planned for it, although I'm struggling to keep the same element of tragedy in there. I have to keep reminding myself that Kushina can't save everyone – leave some for Naruto!_

_Anyway, I hope what happens in this chapter doesn't come too fast – I have pacing issues._

_Hope you enjoy!_

xXx

"Anko? Anko-chan, are you there? Oh, screw this."

Kushina kicked the door in.

"You're lucky she's wasn't on the other side of that," Jiraiya muttered as they wandered inside. No use in being subtle now.

She ignored him, hooking her fingers into three kunai ready to throw. She was almost certain the apartment was empty, but she'd be a stupid ninja if she wasn't prepared and stupid ninja were dead ninja.

It took all of a minute for them to search the apartment, which was empty and appeared to be undisturbed.

"We could have missed her on the way here," Jiraiya suggested quietly. He knew the look on her face. She'd already made up her mind.

Kushina scowled, trying to shake the trembles out of her hands. She tossed a pouch of weapons to her friend. "Look. This was in the bathroom."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You've got these scattered throughout the house, Kushina. Anko may be a twelve year old crazy girl, but that doesn't make her stupid."

The woman shook her head angrily. "No, this is the one she takes everywhere – _everywhere_ – with her. See the dango stitched into the flap? That's so it doesn't get mixed up with Iruka and Hayate's."

"You're jumping to conclusions."

"If you think that, why did you come with me?"

"To keep you from doing something stupid," Jiraiya growled. He sighed, watching her flick her hands once or twice again before clenching them into fist. "She's probably just wandered off somewhere," he said, voice softer. "You know what she's like."

"Exactly. Jiraiya, she's never late." Kushina struggled to keep a hold on her rationality. Maybe the Sannin was right. Maybe Anko really was wandering around Konoha to annoy her.

But she wouldn't have left her weapons behind. Even if she had others hidden in her clothes, she was never without that pouch. It was possible that she had taken another—

But unlikely

"You don't know that she's been kidnapped."

"You don't know that she _hasn't_," Kushina snapped. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think. She'd be the first to admit it wasn't one of her strong points, but sometimes it couldn't be avoided. "I know what you're thinking, Jiraiya, and maybe you're right. But what if you're _not?_"

"You're blowing this out of proportion," Jiraiya said carefully. "Wait a day. See if she—"

That proved to be the last straw for Kushina. The thinking thing wasn't helping Anko, so she tossed it to the side and blew up at the man.

"Wait? _Wait?_ You want me to wait a _day?_ And what if I do, Jiraiya? What if I wait a day and my little girl shows up dead? _What then?_" She wasn't sure with this anger had come from, but that sure as hell wasn't going to stop her.

He blinked at her sudden outburst. "Kushina-chan. She's not your little girl."

"Then whose is she? Jiraiya, she's twelve years old! Ninja or not, she needs someone to look after her and she's had to do it herself for over a year. She is a _kid!_" The red-head drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "She needs someone to come home to."

Jiraiya realised with a shock that Kushina was crying, fat tears silent coursing their way down her cheeks. He didn't even think about it (if he had, he probably wouldn't have done it), just stepped forward and folded her tiny form into his arms. She collapsed, gripping his shirt and relying on his hands to keep her upright as she sobbed quietly into his chest.

"You know what it's like to be an orphan, Jiraiya, but you have no idea what it's like to be alone. By the time your parents died, you already had the old man and Tsunade and _Orochimaru_." She spat the name out. "Anko still thinks she has no one. And if someone's taken her, she's there by herself all alone and…" The red-head shook her head, unable to follow that line of thought.

Kushina's weakness was children. She'd lost her younger brother and sister along with her parents when the Land of the Whirlpool had been overrun and since then had risked her life on numerous occasion to save anyone she considered a child. The woman had even been taken to task once or twice for rescuing the enemy.

Jiraiya crossed his fingers. "Wait a day," he said again, hoping like hell this wasn't going to get his eyes scratched out.

She stiffened then pulled away, dragging the backs of her hands against her eyes. When she finally deemed herself ready to speak without squeaking or hiccupping, she replied.

"Fine." Her voice was near inaudible. "I'll wait a day. But if she's not here tomorrow, Jiraiya, I will rip this Village apart to find her."

xXx

"Something's wrong," Iruka said, breaking the silence. "Rin-san, something's wrong."

Naruto's head swivelled around once again, trying and failing to catch sight of his mother as he had been from the moment she left. His mouth contorted, a wail cutting Iruka off as the genin tried to convey the danger to Rin again.

Hayate started to cough.

Rin stared at Naruto. "He never cries like that," she said softly, lifting the infant out of his high-chair to hush him. The wailing increased as Naruto, distressed, failed to recognise her.

"Rin-san, we have to help nee-chan and ero-sennin! They should be back by now!" Iruka cried. Hayate coughed harder. He'd been doing that for most of the day.

Rin struggled with Naruto, who was flailing about in her arms, hitting himself more than anything else. "You're a genin – a new genin. What makes you think you'd be any use to a jounin and one of the Sannin? Who, incidentally, are just going to pick up Anko-chan." She started to toss Naruto into the air, his favourite trick when he wasn't shuffling along the ground. "Probably everything's fine."

She knew instantly she'd said the wrong thing.

"_Probably?_" Iruka started to hit Hayate on the back. "What do you mean, _probably?_ Why didn't she take Naruto, huh? She takes him _everywhere._"

Said infant, having finally recognised who held him, had stopped screaming although he still whimpered every few seconds as Rin rocked him gently.

"Because it's his feeding time, Iruka-kun! You can't just put off feeding a baby when he needs food, you know!"

"She can feed him and run," Iruka insisted as Rin laid a healing hand on Hayate's back. The other genin was gasping for breath.

"Iruka! It's not that important! Look, hold Naruto while I look after Hayate, alright?"

Iruka clenched his fists as Hayate hacked once, twice and spat out a globule of blood onto his plate. All three of them stared at it.

"Shit." Rin nearly threw Naruto at Iruka. "_Shit_. Hayate, what the hell? Your medic-nin's meant to be looking out for that!"

The boy gestured weakly at his chest. "Can't…breathe…"

She pulled him out of his chair and laid him on the ground. He arched up, coughing harder as her scarred hands shoved him flat again, taking care to press on his stomach so as not to risk damage to his already weak lungs. She ripped his shirt open, preferring skin on skin contact just in case it was more complicated than it should have been. Considering it shouldn't have happened at all, she was probably going to need it.

Hayate had suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis when he was younger. The medic-nin had saved his life, but the aggressive healing needed to combat the disease had caused permanent damage to his lungs, leaving him with that dry, persistent cough. And there was always the chance that the disease had simply gone dormant – meaning it could come _back._

He started to cough again, but had the sense to keep as still as he could manage as the green glow of Rin's healing chakra seeped into his lungs.

She held her breath, waiting for her chakra to tell what she really didn't want to hear.

It didn't but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

"You're okay," she whispered, methodically killing off the organisms that had started to grow again. "You're okay." The TB was back again, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. She hadn't been there the first time, but in reading over Hayate's files, the disease had invaded most of his body when he'd been five. By rights it should have killed him.

Thankfully, the medic-nin working on him had not only managed to corner it back into his lungs where it could be controlled, they trapped it there so the boy wasn't contagious. Of course, that had been back when Tsunade-hime was in Konoha, but at least she had made it so other medics could combat the disease when necessary without being in danger of getting infected themselves.

She rocked back in her heels, having healed his lungs as best she could. Hayate opened one bleary eye and upon seeing Rin glaring at him, closed it very quickly.

"Uh uh, you're not getting away from me like that."

Hayate groaned. Iruka, over the scare, grinned. "You should know better than to get sick in front of Rin-san. She _always_ gets angry when the people she likes get sick."

Rin ignored the brat holding the baby and turned to the other one. "Why didn't your medic-nin pick up on this?"

He mumbled something too quietly for her to hear.

"I'm sorry? What was that?" she enquired loudly.

"I said, I haven't been going," he said softly.

She stared. "You – what?"

"They don't want to touch me," he continued, not looking at her. "Because of Naruto." He sucked in a lungful of air. "Because they said something about him and Kushina-sensei and I told them that they didn't know what they were talking about and they said I was…I was brainwashed or something and I yelled at them…"

Iruka was looking prouder by the moment.

"And now they won't touch me," he reiterated, still not looking at her.

Rin shoved down her anger. She'd go back home later and throw some plates at the wall or something, but right now she had to be a big sister.

_Is this what it's like for Kushina-nee-chan all the time?_ she wondered as she coaxed Hayate into looking at her again. Naruto cooed softly, over his bout of panic from before. _Always looking after us, listening to our problems and making sure we feel as safe a ninja can…_

"Why didn't you come to me, Hayate?" she asked gently.

"I didn't want to upset you."

"So you were just going to let yourself die? Don't you think that would have upset me – and everyone else – a lot more?"

He blushed. It was the first time Rin had ever seen the pale boy as anything other than – well, pale.

"I guess I didn't think it that far through."

Rin nearly snarked something back before realising that wasn't what the kid needed to hear at that moment. Instead, she stood, groaning.

"Iruka, give Naruto back to me and lend Hayate one of your shirts, yeah? I think I ruined his." She smiled down apologetically, hefting Naruto in one arm as Iruka helped Hayate first sit, then stand. He was shrugged off the moment the sick boy could stand, but Rin saw the gratitude in those dark eyes even if Iruka missed it.

The door crashed open and Kushina swept inside. Her hair, which had been scooped up into a ponytail when she left was now perilously close to escaping it's confines, fringe covering half of her face as Rin blinked, and she was right _there._

The medic-nin glanced down. Kushina was only wearing one of her anklets. She probably had no idea how fast she'd moved.

Rin caught sight of the other woman's red-rimmed eyes and bit her lip, passing Naruto to her. Kushina murmured a thank you and disappeared down the hall to her small bedroom as Jiraiya walked into the house. He shut the door and reset the protection jutsu as Iruka and Hayate stared numbly in the direction Kushina had gone.

_Who looks after her, when she's done looking after us?_

"Gekko. No questions, you're staying here tonight." He raised an eyebrow at Hayate's ripped shirt. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you later," Rin said. "Hayate, you heard Jiraiya. There's a spare bedroom next to Iruka's or the futon if you can't be bothered making up the bed. Iruka, don't worry about the shirt and just lend him some pyjama's, alright?"

"But what about Kushina-nee-chan? What about _Anko?_"

"He said no questions, didn't he? Go!" she ordered. Despite the heavy atmosphere that had settled over the night, she could help but smile at the way Iruka hadn't even noticed his use of Anko's given name.

Iruka scowled, then glanced at Hayate. "Race ya."

"You'll never win."

"You just had a healing! That always makes you tired!"

"Like I said. You'll never win."

"Oh yeah?"

The boys ran off. Rin collapsed into the nearest chair, feeling slightly light-headed from the chakra she'd used up in healing Hayate.

Jiraiya drew up a chair next to her. "Do you want to go first, or should I?"

xXx

Kushina squeezed her eyes shut tight, needing to hold her son but unable to look at him.

"I want Minato," she whispered.

xXx

_I'm sorry about the late update. Suffice to say I've been up shit creek and only just recently found a paddle. Much love to everyone who's sticking with me, but now I must be off to do my homework. Joy._


	9. Chapter 8

_I would like to credit DBCL (darling baby cousin Lukas) for inspiring this chapter. He's my blue-eyed blond boy who recently turned eight months and crawled properly for the first time two days ago. Damn, I can't _wait_ for this boy to grow up! I'm going to be the best cousin ever. _

_School's a bitch, but you probably knew that already._

xXx

Anko didn't show up the next day.

Nor, after Kushina's frantic searching, the day after.

Jiraiya and Rin joined in on day three, Iruka and Hayate day four. By the time Kakashi got back from his mission on day six, Kushina was about ready to murder someone.

Kakashi stuck his head around the door. "Yo."

"Shut up."

He blinked, stepping fully inside. Kushina was sitting cross-legged on the table, feeding Naruto with one hand and marking areas off a map with the other.

"Did I miss something."

There was a long pause before Kushina's head jerked up and wide brown eyes stared at him in shock.

"Kakashi?" she whispered. "You're back?"

He patted his chest once or twice and gave her a painfully large smile, trying to get one in return from her. "Looks like it."

It didn't work. Something was off, and the woman herself confirmed it when she leapt off the table and crashed into him, leaving a bewildered Naruto with the spoon still in his mouth.

Kakashi hesitated for a long moment as she clung to him. The only other time he'd see her like this was the night of sensei's death after she'd faced down the Council. Awkwardly, he reached up and rubbed her back once or twice, trying not to sneeze at the red hair tickling his nose. She'd let it out for once instead of tying it up in a high pony-tail or twisting it into a bun at the nape of her neck.

"Anko's gone, Kakashi."

He frowned, Mitarashi's face flashing into his mind. Short, fast, with potential to be great, especially in ranged combat. A bit like Kushina in that regard. Killed her father, fair enough, but went a little crazy because of it. Fantastic sense of humour.

"Gone? You mean she's left the Village?" He knew Kushina was attached to her genin, but he didn't think she's break down because one of them had left.

"No."

He waited.

Kushina let out a great shuddering sigh and seemed to realize she was almost clinging to him. She stepped backwards and turned silently away from him, staring past the far wall. "She been taken," the woman said softly. "And I don't know why and I don't know _where_ and I think she might be dead."

"You think…she's been kidnapped."

"No, I _know_ she's been kidnapped! Damn it, this is what got her lost in the first place! I _knew_ something was wrong, I _knew_ she'd been taken but I let Jiraiya talk me out of it and now she's dead!"

"Do you know she's dead?"

She wouldn't look at him. Naruto started to pound his fists awkwardly on the table, still hungry. "We can't find her, Kakashi. Even Jiraiya – we can't _find_ her."

Kakashi didn't get protective urges very often and when he did, they were usually for Rin or Iruka. Sure, he got angry at Kushina whenever she did something stupid like break her ribs trying to perform a weapon summons, but that was different. _She _was the one who did the protecting – not of him, of course not of him – not the other way around.

Most of the time, Kakashi managed to successfully ignore how young he was. Unfortunately age didn't work like that and every now and then he had a rather painful reminder that jounin he may have been, he was still only fifteen years old.

And how does a fifteen-year-old protect a woman from breaking herself into pieces?

"If she's alive, I'll find her," he promised quietly.

She stopped staring mindlessly at the wall and returned to her baby, picking up the spoon from where he had spat it out. "If Jiraiya can't find her, Kakashi, what makes you think you can?"

Solemnly, he lifted up his forehead-protector. "Jiraiya doesn't have the Sharingan."

Kushina froze, leaving Naruto straining in his high-chair to reach the spoon halfway to his mouth. "You would…use Obito's eye."

He winced visibly at that name, but answered quickly enough. "Why would I?"

She frowned a little. "I thought…" Her face cleared and she smiled gently at him. "It doesn't matter. Thank you."

He couldn't protect her, but that didn't mean he couldn't try. He owed sensei that much, at least. He owed her that much.

xXx

_All she knew was pain._

_She'd tried to fight it at first, tried to fight it like she tried to fight everything. But she was just a passenger on this ride, a genin too weak to be of any use and just sane enough to know it._

_So it took her over._

xXx

There were no traces.

Kakashi checked again and again, in the apartment and around but there were no traces of Mitarashi Anko. Over the next four days he expanded the search until Rin had to forcibly hold him down to keep him from exhausting his chakra reserves. The fact that she could do it without resorting to her own chakra-enhanced strength proved just how far he'd pushed imself.

Jiraiya had taken over Iruka and Hayate's training (not that they were putting much effort into it without Anko) for fear that in Kushina's distraction over Anko, someone would get hurt. So Kushina, with nothing to do but worry had gone to visit the teens in their apartment and walked in on the scene.

She raised an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe as Rin punched Kakashi in the mouth. Naruto, sensing her mood lift infinitesimally for the first time since Anko's disappearance, chortled happily.

"I almost thought I'd walked in on something here, but it seems everything's normal."

Rin blushed slightly but stayed firmly straddling Kakashi's waist, one hand pinning his arms above his head and the other ready to hit him again. "Kushina-nee-chan, do you have any nin-wire?"

"Plenty, why?"

"Lend me some, would you?"

It wasn't exactly an answer, but Kushina could see where this was heading. Shaking her head, she shifted Naruto over to her left arm and pushed herself off the door frame, rummaging around in one of her pouches.

"Here." She held out a coil of wire to the medic-nin and watched the girl pump some of her chakra into it before she tied Kakashi up with it. The other jounin wasn't so far gone that he couldn't resist her, but he didn't bother trying; with his reserves as low as they were from the near constant use of the Sharingan, she'd get him sooner or later. Probably sooner, knowing Rin's determination.

"Embarrassed?" Kushina asked, tipping Naruto backwards in her arms – his new favourite trick.

"Not particularly." Kakashi shifted experimentally in his bonds. "After all, nothing's broken."

"Very funny," the red-head muttered, setting Naruto on the ground and flopping down next to him. They sat in silence as Rin pumped some chakra into Kakashi, giving him a much needed boost. Just so he could sit up without leaning on her – not enough for him to be able to break the wire.

Rin looked at the two of them sitting there, lost in their own thoughts. She didn't need to be a Yamanaka to know what those thoughts centred around.

"Kushina-nee-chan, would you like me to take Naruto for a walk?" she asked softly.

She could never pretend to understand the relationship that had developed between Kakashi and Kushina since the death of her sensei, but she'd learnt to read the signs at least and knew the two needed to be alone to talk. Maybe it was because of the closeness they had shared with the Yondaime, something that Rin might have achieved after time but hadn't been able to in the short amount they'd had together. Minato-sensei had had a way of bringing people when he was alive. Rin wasn't surprised that it had carried on after his death.

"Hmm? Oh, sure. Rin, that would be great." Kushina flashed an Uzumaki smile at the medic-nin who was struck by how _tired_ the older woman looked.

Rin swung the giggling baby up into her arms as he tried to crawl away.

"Hey, Naruto," she cooed. There was something about the kid that brought out the twelve year old in her, that little girl she'd been before Obito's death.

A drop of drool hit her nose as she held the baby above her head. She wrinkled it, and laughed, wiping the drool off with her sleeve and heading towards the door.

She paused.

"Stop…stop blaming yourselves," she told them softly. "Please."

She couldn't sense a reaction, but they were jounin so she shouldn't have. Rin turned her attention back to the smiling baby in her arms.

"How about I take you to see your daddy, hmm?" She bounced him a little in her arms. "Would you like that?"

He laughed at her tone and she grinned back, kissing him on the forehead.

Rin was sick of death and blaming. It was good to see that at least someone escaped it.

xXx

_It was like killing fathers, a detached part of her decided, clinically looking on as the rest of her writhed and screamed in that never-ending pain. Just like killing fathers._

_She couldn't feel anymore. It would have been funny, if she could remember how to laugh. If she could remember what laughter was._

_The others were dead. Nine others there had been, and the part of her who had run away from the pain had watched them die._

_All of them begging. All of them in pain. _

_And she knew. She _knew_. It wasn't like killing fathers at all._

_More like killing mothers._

_She hated killing mothers. Maybe it was time to kill Anko's instead._

xXx

"Stop looking."

Kakashi blinked once, slowly. "What?"

"Stop _looking_. There's nothing to be found anymore."

"But—"

"Kakashi! This is not worth losing you too!"

They stared at each other, Kushina hugging her knees and Kakashi trussed up like a chicken.

"She's dead," the woman said softly, first to look away. "We're never going to know why she's dead, or how but it's pretty obvious. She's _dead_."

There wasn't much he could sat to that, but Kakashi was going to try anyway. 'never thought you were one for giving up," he remarked, sighing.

"Can't fight death," she replied.

"You don't know she's dead."

"So tell me how she could be alive, Kakashi!"

The other jounin remained silent. He hated this. He hated not being able to _do_ anything. His one asset, the one unique thing he had was useless because there was nothing to be seen.

He thought about that. _Nothing_ to be seen, nothing to be _seen…_

The door slammed open, startling him from his thoughts. Idly, a part of Kakashi's brain wondered if anyone in his mismatched family was _capable _of opening a door properly, and if he should be ashamed for jumping.

"Kushina! You're here!" Jiraiya was grinning from ear to ear, a genin in each hand. Iruka looked smug, if a little afraid. Hayate's face, as usual, was emotionless. "Your brat is a genius."

Kushina frowned. "Naruto?" She hadn't turned around, hadn't even twitched at Jiraiya's exuberant entrance, so she hadn't seen Iruka and Hayate.

"There are no traces!" Iruka cried impatiently.

"Iruka-kun?" Kushina whipped around. "Hayate? You should be training, not pointing out the obvious!"

"Nothing to be seen…" Kakashi muttered. "Kushina, the kid's got it."

She stared, disbelieving. "Well, would someone mind explaining things to me?"

"Even Kakashi can't find anything, not even with the Sharingan," Iruka burbled. "There's no sign of Anko in her _own apartment_. It's like she's totally disappeared!"

"So?"

"So if she were dead, Kushina, there would still be a trace of her somewhere," Kakashi continued, a grin breaking across his face. Why hadn't he thought of it? "Instead of a trail that leads nowhere, we have no trail. And how many shinobi do you know who are strong enough to do that?"

He watched it sink in, watched the elation chase away the shadows on her face before it suddenly drained of colour. Jiraiya and Iruka, who had been doing some sort of dance in the doorway, froze as they saw her.

"Not including the old man?" she whispered. "Three come to mind offhand. Except that one is who-knows-where and the other I'd rtust with the life of my child."

Kakashi frowned. "What…"

Jiraiya was shaking his head. "No. No, don't be stupid."

"I was stupid not to see it before, Jiraiya." Her entire body was trembling.

"He's a little strange, Kushina, but that doesn't mean he's capable of kidnapping!"

And the answer hit Kakashi with sudden, horrible clarity.

"Orochimaru."

xXx

_The pain was…receding? Going away? Did this mean she could go back?_

_No. No, it still hurt. She didn't want to go back. She was sick of hurting. It was easier to stay here in the nothingness where there was no feeling. If she were lucky, maybe it would end here._

_What's that? A face? Brown hair, brown eyes, scar across the nose…_

I know you

_A sarcastic comment, a cough, a flash of the finest steel…_

I know you.

_Silver hair, empty smile. _

_Soft words and a healing hand. _

_A mane of white and a wart the size of her toenail. _

I know you.

_Deep red hair and the widest grin she'd ever seen. A promise of forever in warm chocolate eyes._

I _know_ you.

xXx

Mitarashi Anko started to fight back.

xXx

_Wrote the majority of this in a day. Give thanks to the DBCL, for he inspires all. Or something like that. Maybe just thank your nearest blue-eyed blond boy._


	10. Chapter 9

I'm sorry

_I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry and I never would have left this chapter so late, but my laptop crashed and lots has been going on and it's my birthday tomorrow!_

_I lost most of the chapter, you see. Now I have to start again. I'm not fond of writing things twice, which is why it's taken me so long to get my arse into gear. But I'm here now!_

_So! Sixteen on the Seventh of April (NZ time), happy birthday to me and here's your present, chapter 9!_

_By the way, if you don't know what a beserker is, it's someone who gets so hyped up on blood lust or battle that they just start killing anything._

xXx

"Hmm. I was not expecting this one to survive."

_Where…am I?_

"A survival rate of one out of ten, then."

_Uh…_who_ am I?_

"Of course, the real question is the success rate. Assuming survival equals success…"

_It hurts. It hurts so bad._

"Well, I suppose more testing is in order. The subject _appears_ to be able to continue."

_Subject? Am I subject?_

"I must know the success rate."

_Is that who I am?_

"Hn. I suppose that out of the ten, if any were to survive I would prefer it to be this one."

A face swam hazily into view and subject barely suppressed a scream. It was like something out of a nightmare, a snake's face stretched over a human's.

"Stand, Mitarashi Anko."

_No. Not subject. Anko. Mitarashi Anko._

A rasped chuckle that sounded like death as she stayed slumped on the ground.

"A fitting revenge, Uzumaki Kushina."

Anko remembered.

xXx

Inuzuki Tsume frowned as Kuromaru whined.

"Yeah, I hear it too, boy," she murmured, scratching his ear. The faint wisp of a scream escaping from behind some sort of jutsu.

And then another god-awful howling started up and she swore.

"Damn, kid, you'd better be hungry!" she yelled, moving back inside. Kuromaru's tongue lolled out. "Shut up," she told him.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

The wailing increased.

"You might wanna feed the pup, Tsume."

She rolled her eyes, picking Kiba up and jiggling him a little. He promptly threw up on her shoulder, sighed, and settled down again.

"I think I'll drown him."

In the back of her mind, that scream echoed, but she ignored it. After all, what went on behind closed doors was the business of nobody but those in the house.

xXx

"You're crazy, Kushina," Jiraiya protested. "It _can't_ be him."

"Then who the _hell_ could it be?" she screamed at him. "Kakashi, let me go!"

"So you can kill him?"

"Jiraiya, no, Orochimaru – that's the plan!"

"It can't be him!"

"Jiraiya, _shut the fuck up!_"

It was in the resulting silence that Rin opened the door, an unusually subdued Naruto in her arms. She seemed to realise that she'd walked in on something almost immediately.

"Ah…I can—"

"Leave," Kushina ground out, not taking her eyes of a torn-looking Jiraiya.

"You're su—"

"_Leave_. And take the brats with you."

Rin opened her mouth again, caught Kakashi's quick shake of the head and shut it again with a click. Iruka and Hayate were smart enough not to protest as she herded them out the door.

"What do you think happened, Jiraiya?" Kushina asked, voice deceptively quiet. "Do you think perhaps the old man decided to break all his vows as Hokage and start kidnapping children?" Kakashi caught the quiver of rage and fear and _hate_ in her voice that meant all hell was about to break loose.

"Maybe Tsunade secretly came back and decided that a little torture was more to her tastes then healing! _Or was it you, Jiraiya?_" She was screaming again, struggling insanely against Kakashi's grip that was slowly starting to loosen. Even Copy-Cat Kakashi couldn't hold up against Uzumaki Kushina for long, especially not drained as he was.

"Shit," Kakashi muttered, although he doubted that either of the adults actually heard him.

_When did she take her anklets off?_

It was with this realisation that the silver-haired teen figured out he really didn't have a hope in hell of holding the woman much longer, and she proved him right with a kick to the gut that would have broken a lesser man in half.

Jiraiya was too thunderstruck to stop her.

Kakashi peeled himself out of the wall he'd crashed into and in an uncharacteristic show of rage, leapt at the Sannin. "You bastard! Look what you did!"

On reflex, the white-haired man caught him by the throat and threw him to the side. Coughing weakly, Kakashi rolled to his side and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Shit. _Shit!_" Jiraiya was instantly action, running to the downed jounin. "She fucking ruptured something."

"You didn't help," Kakashi croaked, feeling vaguely as if his insides had collapsed. "Why are you still here?"

"Because you're in the process of dying?"

"Go after…Kushina."

"No point. There's no catching up to her now. She would have been running to fast to even leave tracks."

Kakashi closed his eyes. "You don't need tracks. She's going after Orochimaru."

"Shut up before I knock you out," Jiraiya said flatly. "Talking is just going to make this worse. I'm going to get Rin."

"Fuck, Jiraiya, he'll kill her!" The effort of shouting made Kakashi convulse pathetically, blood dribbling out the side of his mouth. He'd been closer to death than this before, but not by much. "She's not even _there_ anymore! It's the fucking Kyuubi all over again!"

"Kushina's old enough to make her own choices," Jiraiya clipped out, already at the door.

xXx

It wasn't a well known fact that Kushina was a beserker. Mostly because the missions that would provoke her like that, she insisted on going on alone, and any enemies who saw it were instantly obliterated.

After she spent ten minutes or so crashing blindly around that forest killing trees, she realised she had an objective. As it's hard to maintain an objective when one is beserk, she managed to gain minimal control over herself. It didn't make the blood lust dissipate any, but it was just enough so she could fix a location in her head to work with the objective.

Orochimaru's lab. She'd start there, and if there wasn't anything to tear apart, she'd move on.

xXx

"_You'll look after her, won't you sensei? If anything happens to me, I mean. You'll look after Kushina, right?_

"_Shut up, Minato. You know I don't need looking after. And you're Konoha's Yellow Flash – there ain't nothing in the world that could take _you_ down."_

"_Nice to know you have faith in me. Maybe you could show it sometime instead of jumping in front of _kunai_ when you're _pregnant_."_

"_Oh, psht. That was one time."_

"_It was _three._"_

Jiraiya swore a blue streak under his breath as he watched a pale-faced Rin work on Kakashi. Kushina really had done a number on him.

"_You're taking this pretty well, Orochimaru."_

"_Your student is an idiot, Jiraiya. Sooner or later, he will die and I will become Hokage."_

"_Che. Don't speak like that, you sound like you're going to off him."_

"_Yes, but then I wouldn't become Hokage."_

He couldn't have done it. Well…he wouldn't have done it, at least.

"_Hey, what's that look on your face? You wanna rip off someone's head?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Geez, watch out Konoha. Who?"_

"_Uzumaki Kushina."_

"_What?"_

"_Hmm? No, you idiot – she's over there."_

"_If you say so."_

Okay, so maybe he might have wanted to hurt Kushina. But what would he do with Anko anyway? Not kill her, there'd be a body _somewhere, _surely.

No. He was being stupid. _Everyone_ was being stupid. There was no way Orochimaru would hurt a child. Not with his past.

"_I want to live forever, Jiraiya. I will find the secret to immortality – at any cost."_

"_Che. If you say so."_

Shit.

"I'm going after Kushina."

xXx

"Kushina, what are you doing here," the Sandaime said quietly, so as not to disturb her.

She turned quite calmly towards him, face flecked with her own blood, hands drenched in crimson from where she'd cut them on the glass strewn around the laboratory.

Her eyes were too sane.

"Killing," she replied simple.

"What are you killing, Kushina?"

"Orochimaru."

Sarutobi stiffened slightly, then forced himself to relax. She was nearly out of the fit – once she stopped destroying things, she generally could be reasoned with. If he made a wrong move, however, she'd go beserk again.

"Why are you killing Orochimaru, Kushina?"

She frowned. The more he mentioned her name, the more he brought her back to herself.

"I…he…"

Sarutobi waited.

"He took Anko."

xXx

And just like that, the red veil fell from her eyes.

"Kakashi," she whispered. "Oh, _shit_."

Sarutobi frowned. "Kakashi."

She shook her head. Kakashi was strong. At most, she would have broken a few ribs. Anko, however, was not strong.

"Where's Orochimaru, old man?"

"Kushina—"

"Where is he? You can't hide him from me, old man. I won't kill him if you don't want me to. I'll just rip him a part a little bit."

"How can you – you know, never mind. Kushina, what's going on? What do you mean, Orochimaru took Anko?"

"I've been telling you all week, Sarutobi. There are no traces of my Anko anywhere. Even Kakashi couldn't find her with the Sharingan. How many people do you know who could do that? Who could wipe out the existence of a person like that?"

"There are many, Kushina. Not all of the ninja in this world come from Konohagakure. I think perhaps you are jumping to—"

"What would they gain, Sarutobi?" She could feel the rage bottling up again and brutally thrust it down again. She needed to have a calm head for this. "What would an enemy shinobi gain from kidnapping a twelve year old orphan genin?"

She watched that thought sink in just as Jiraiya burst through a window.

"Kushina!"

She glared at him. "Come around, have you?"

"You try coming to terms with the fact that your best friend may have had something to do with kidnapping an innocent little girl."

"Jiraiya? You think Kushina may be right?"

The Sannin sighed heavily. "I'm the one Iruka-brat told first. I just…didn't think it all the way through."

"Old man, you know Orochimaru's been up to something weird. I bet Anko's not the first to go missing, is she?" Actually, that thought had just popped into Kushina's head, but by the look on Sarutobi's face, it had been right on the mark. "Where is he? Please tell me."

A pause.

"I don't know."

xXx

_Just keep breathing just keep breathing just keep breathing roll under the pain breathe through it just keep—_

Anko screamed.

—_breathing just keep breathing roll under the pain just keep breathing._

_My name is Mitarashi Anko and I will not die._

xXx

Tsume had just finished changing clothes for the third time that day when her daughter Hana tugged on her sleeve.

"Kaa-san? There are people at the door…"

Or _through_ the door, she gathered from the large crash that echoed through the house. Kiba started to wail again, woken from his sleep.

"Damnit!" she roared. "I only just got the bugger down! This better be important!"

Her ears pricked. "Uzumaki Kushina and blood," she told Kuromaru. The two were never good on their own, and mixed they could be unmitigated disaster. Tsume didn't want anything to do with this.

"Jiraiya," Kuromaru added. "And the Sandaime."

Then again, she may not have the choice, with those two.

"Well?" she asked, hands on hips. It was Uzumaki's hands covered in blood, she noted meticulously, and it was her own.

"Who is the best tracker in your family, Tsume-san?" the Hokage asked quietly.

Shit. It really was important. "That'd be me, Hokage-sama. At least until the brat grows up."

"How would you feel about reuniting with your old team mates?"

Tsume blinked. She hadn't spoken to Uchiha or Hyuuga in years. "Is it a mission, sir?"

"You could say that."

She folded her arms. "Whadya want me to do?"

"Find Orochimaru."

Tsume's head jerked sharply to the right. Uzumaki's hair was hanging lank over her face as she looked at the ground. Some tracker. She should have been alert, aware of everything.

"Can I aske why?" Her tone was a little rude, but it was directed at Uzumaki not the Hokage.

Slowly, the other woman lifted her head, bloodshot brown eyes meeting Tsume's own slit black. The Inuzuka woman would never have admitted it aloud, but she almost shrank back from what was in that hard gaze. Unutterable loss, and beneath boiling rage and hate, a will to shatter steel.

"We suspect he has kidnapped Mitarashi Anko, as well as numerous others. Presumably for experimentation," the Sandaime explained softly.

Tsume blanched. Orochimaru scared the crap out of her normally. She didn't want to think 'experimentation' meant.

Her eyes slid to Uzumaki's again. The woman was standing straight like she usually did, almost as if she'd sense Tsume's disapproval. She may have, although if Uzumaki had anything of the woman she had known left in her, her reaction wasn't to please Tsume. Rather, she had probably beenjolted back into a ninja state of mind.

Although…Tsume had had her own genin team a few years back. She'd nearly lost all of them at once, and the nightmares had kept her awake for months. Shinobi rule number twenty five was surprisingly difficult to follow.

"All right. I guess we start now."

xXx

Anko shuddered and nearly collapsed as the seal drew more, _more_ out of her.

But she wasn't going to. She was going to stay strong. Failing strong, she was going to stay _alive._

"Fascinating," Orochimaru drawled. "Possibility for survival has increased by five point seven percent. Possibility for the subject to be in any fit mental state…decreased by thirteen point one percent. Very fascinating."

She had to concentrate on it, but eventually Anko worked up enough saliva to spit at his feet.

His face twisted – it did that a lot, she'd noticed – and the seal flared again.

She slumped to the ground, throwing out her arms to stop herself from sprawling on her stomach.

His cold, raspy voice was like the drawing of steel echoing in her head. "Possibility for survival…decreased by thirty seven point four percent."

She couldn't be certain, but she was pretty sure that was all she had left.

xXx

_Alright! I hope that was worth the wait! And I wrote this all in one day, so yes, my birthday is still tomorrow._

_See ya next chapter!_


	11. Chapter 10

Tsume was watching

_Okay, I realise I may be dragging this out a bit too long. I'm sorry! But there's so much that I have to put in here…fucking plot._

_Chapter 10, everybody! Enjoy!_

xXx

Tsume was watching.

It wasn't something she did all that often, being more reliant on her hearing and sense of smell. But the time came when such advantages could be overwhelmed, and now was that time.

Uzumaki Kushina.

If Tsume were honest with herself, she'd admit that she'd never given the other woman a warm welcome. She was wary of outsiders, and the way Uzumaki had smelled when she first showed up in Konoha, stubborn and childish, had turned her off further.

Of course, Uzumaki had been thirteen at the time and unwilling to accept the destruction of her Country, but first impressions stuck, and Tsume hadn't been impressed.

Maybe that had been a mistake, ignoring the fiery red-head who'd burst into the Village and demanded reinforcements. For a start, thirteen-old-chuunin were a rare breed, thirteen-year-old chuunin with no nin or genjutsu almost non-existent. Now, raw power rolled off of the woman - and not chakra, either. Tsume wasn't sure what the hell was going on with Uzumaki's reserves or pathways or whatever, but she knew they didn't work.

No, the power emanating from Uzumaki was sheer _physical _strength. Despite the tortured, haunted look in her brown eyes (eyes that Tsume was finding increasingly difficult to look into), she walked with dangerous confidence, limbs poised to snap out at a split-second's notice. Literally a split-second - the taijutsu master could move faster than the human eye could see if pushed. Tsume had the feeling that Uzumaki was _real_ close to being pushed.

Loping easily alongside her, Kuromaru's tongue lolled out in a grin.

"What are you laughing about?" she murmured.

"You're starting to get interested in the girl," he replied, choosing to bark it at her so the others didn't understand.

"It's hard not to," she replied as Uzumaki turned to Jiraiya.

"Where's Kakashi?" the woman asked.

"Click any message to view it in the reading pane. Attachments, pictures, and links from unknown senders are blocked to help protect your privacy and safety.

To show messages automatically when you select a folder, change your reading pane settings

Don't ask."

"Jiraiya."

"Trust me. You don't want to know."

Uzumaki looked stricken, and vaguely Tsume remembered seeing Hatake Kakashi carrying the woman through the streets a few months before. She could smell the affection and love between the two of them a street away.

"I didn't kick him that hard, did I?" Uzumaki asked, chewing on a fingernail. Tsume was suddenly reminded that, although the other woman had a child similar in age to her own, she was only twenty-one.

_Kick him? Why did she kick him?_

_Not my business._

Of course, she'd already gotten herself involved in Uzumaki's business, but you had to draw a line somewhere. Hatake was one of the best ninja in the Village, anyway. Even Uzumaki couldn't have don't that much damage.

"You really want to know?"

"Of course I want to know."

"You broke three of his ribs. One pierced his lung."

Uzumaki came to a sudden stop and Tsume just barely avoided running into her. They were nearing the Uchiha compound, she noted absently.

"Pierced his _lung?_" the woman whispered. "_How?_"

"You kick damn hard sometimes, Kushina."

"Yeah, but it's _Kakashi_."

Jiraiya shrugged, tugging on the red-haired woman's hand to get her running again. He'd been holding on to it to keep her from flitting off on her own. "He spent all his energy looking Anko this weak. You just forgot when you went crazy."

_Crazy? Was she the one blundering around in the forest just—_

_Not my business._

"He—" Uzumaki swallowed harshly. "He'll be okay, won't he?"

"Got Rin to him in time. He won't die, but he'll probably be out of commission for a few days. Maybe a week."

"I—" The other woman shook her head. "You're right. I shouldn't have asked. I – I need to keep my mind on Anko."

The Sandaime spoke up for the first time since he'd convinced Tsume to join this little rescue band. "I think perhaps it would be best if we split up to save time."

"I'll take the Uchiha," Uzumaki announced immediately.

"You can't stand Fugaku, Kushina," Sarutobi pointed out.

"Yes, but I can convince him to join over Hyuuga. Uchiha, at least, has some sense of civic duty. And his wife likes me," she added.

"I'll go with her," Tsume offered, the words coming out a little drawled. "What?" she asked defensively as three heads turned to look incredulously at her. "Look, I can't stand either of those bastards, but Hyuuga gives me the creeps. He's total ice. At least Uchiha's got some fire in him. Between the two of us, me'n Uzumaki'll be able to goad him into joining."

Maybe it was time to get on the good side of the girl, Tsume thought as the group split up. It wasn't _her_ fault she'd birthed the demon child, after all.

"I thought Uchiha and Hyuuga were your team-mates once?" Uzumaki asked as they leapt over rooftops.

"For a year," Tsume confirmed. "Before I couldn't take it anymore and left. We weren't a genin team," she clarified at Uzumaki's frown. Generally, you couldn't leave your genin team unless you were reassigned. "The higher-ups decided Konoha needed an elite tracking team. Che. Of course the Uchiha and the Hyuuga immediately decided it was below them and didn't bother trying, so I ended up looking like a right idiot trying to do all the work. Gimme a bunch of puppies over those two idiots any day."

Uzumaki grinned, but Tsume could still smell the anger and _hate_ on her. The woman was like a she-bear with cubs. She couldn't wait to see her maul the Uchiha.

"Why are you going so far for this girl?" Tsume asked suddenly. "From I've heard, she's more than half insane, a little bitch to be around and not likely to live to the Chuunin Exams."

All of the loose energy Uzumaki had been exuding suddenly stiffened up into pure _danger. _ Tsume was so surprised she nearly tripped over Kuromaru, who growled at the change of atmosphere.

Then Uzumaki relaxed, and it was gone.

"You're thinking…that I could just report Anko missing to the Uchiha Clan and be done with it, yeah?"

"Pretty much."

"You really don't know anything about me, do you?"

Tsume waited. She was a little shocked to find how interested she was in this woman, almost a decade her junior.

"Children…children mean everything to me. They're the most precious thing in the world. I've risked my life for children of the enemy, Inuzuka, and Anko…I promised I'd protect her. I promised all of my genin that I would. And then there's Minato…" Uzumaki shook her head. "I don't want to disappoint him." Her face hardened and her hands clenched. "I'm going to rescue Anko, and I'm going to rip Orochimaru to pieces with my bare hands while I'm at it."

The funny thing was that, looking at Uzumaki as they ran towards the Uchiha compound, Tsume believed that this tiny woman could actually do it.

"You're getting soft," Kuromaru barked, tongue lolling out once again.

She refused to dignify that with an answer.

_It might be nice to have faith again_.

xXx

"No."

Uzumaki's hand shot out and caught the door before Uchihna could slam it shut. "_Teme._ We're talking about the life of an innocent child here!"

"If you cannot keep track of an orphan, Uzumaki Kushina, you do not deserve to have an orphan."

Tsume had been half-expecting it, so she really wasn't that surprised when Uzumaki ripped the door off its hinges.

"Now, now, Uzumaki, that's hardly likely to—"

"I'd shut up if I were you, Uchiha," Tsume remarked. "Uzumaki here's feeling the need to rip heads off somethin' _awful_. We're gunning for Orochimaru, but she might decide to go for an appetizer before the main course, if y'know what I mean."

The spark of fear that she smelled nearly bowled her over. It took her a moment to sort the scent out, it was so powerful, but it was most definitely masculine and rolling off Uchiha in waves.

He was afraid of Uzumaki.

Tsume grinned, baring her teeth. She'd hated this man for a long time. "Scared, Uchiha?"

"Of a half-breed and a child who can't keep control of her temper? Hardly."

Her grin widened. "Liar."

"Fugaku? What's going on?" Mikoto appeared behind her husband. "Kushina-san? What are you doing here?"

"Destroying the compound, apparently," Fugaku drawled.

He really was keeping remarkable composure, considering the stink he was letting off. What was it about Uzumaki that scared him so much?

There was a happy gurgle and the sweetest child Tsume had ever seen crawled into view. His eyes were wide and guileless, black hair stick up in all directions as Mikoto absently picked him up.

_The inestimable Uchiha Sasuke. Cute now, but give him a few years and Fugaku'll cure him of that._

"Anko's been kidnapped, Mikoto," Uzumaki responded immediately. "I'm sure you've heard. We've narrowed the suspects down to Orochimaru, but no one knows where he is. If your husband won't help us, could you please…" The woman licked her lips, looking rather like she was about to swallow poison. "Could you please allow your son to assist us?"

Tsume's eyebrows shot up and even Kuromaru barked his surprise. Uzumaki's unreasoning hatred for the Uchiha golden boy was well known.

Mikoto was frowning. "Fugaku? Why won't you help Kushina-san?"

Silence.

"Fugaku, it's your job as a member of the Konoha police Force to—"

"Mikoto."

She fell silent instantly.

"You truly wish me to help this…woman?" A sneer twisted his lips at the last word. Tsume laid a hand on Kushina's shoulder to stop her from ripping the man's throat out. Much to her surprise, the younger woman relaxed.

"Does it really matter what I wish, Fugaku?" Mikoto asked wistfully, bouncing Sasuke a little on her hip. Tsume had very little respect for this woman who gave in to her husband's every demand, even retiring from active duty to look after children when Konoha needed its experienced jounin more than ever.

"Not now, Mikoto. Answer the question."

Uzumaki growled a little in the back of her throat, sounding remarkable animalistic. Tsume felt ridiculously proud.

"Scared, Uchiha?"

Oh, she could have picked that cool tone out from an army of screaming fangirls. "Hyuuga," she remarked without turning around.

"Inuzuka, Uzumaki." His voice held no emotion. Surprise, surprise. "Well, Uchiha? I understand, of course. Orochimaru is a formidable opponent, but then again, with another Sannin _and _the Hokage on our side as well as the two _inestimable_ kunoichi present, I would think—"

"I'm coming," Uchiha growled.

"I'm so glad."

Mikoto was frowning. "You'll all be careful, won't you?"

"Two jounin, two elite kunoichi, a Sannin and the Hokage," Uzumaki breezed. "We'll be fine, Mikoto."

Of course, Tsume should have started expecting everything to fall to shit around then.

xXx

One Sharingan, Kushina quickly noted, was nothing compared to the power of two. Especially not when those two were combined with two Byakugan and the legendary Inuzuka senses. Despite their obvious loathing for each other, Uchiha, Hyuuga and Tsume worked quickly and efficiently together. Probably because after the first five minutes the old man had ordered silence unless it was to do with the mission.

_Mission. _It was such a cold word for what they were doing, but it was helping to keep Kushina from falling apart again. She couldn't _afford_ to go beserk again.

So. Mission. Just another mission.

They were following Tsume and Kuromaru. The other woman had mentioned something about hearing a peculiarly warped scream from the east earlier in the day, and it was then that Kushina learned that the famed Inuzuka hearing could pierce even genjutsu.

Then came the Hyuuga and the Uchiha, eye techniques operating to the fullest. It didn't make Kushina like them any more, but she was glad that they were at least taking them seriously.

They were an odd looking group, particularly as two of the village's most powerful members were _following_ as opposed to leading but Kushina couldn't care less for the odd looks they had garnered because the Hyuuga, lead by Kuromaruy and Tsume, had found something.

A hair. A single hair that appeared black, but when held up to the light was obviously purple. If it weren't for the fact that she was in the presence of the two biggest arseholes in the Village, Kushina would have sagged with relief.

Kuromaru sniffed it. "Definitely her," he growled. He lifted his muzzle to the air. "What d'you think, Tsume?"

The Inuzuka leader also sniffed the air. "East?"

"Just barely."

They were about to start off again when the Uchiha pulled up short.

"It's fake."

"What do you mean, Fugaku?" Sarutobi asked.

"The trail. It's either a trap, or a false trail. Orochimaru is not stupid, we know that."

"How do you know it's fake?" Kushina demanded.

"Well for one thing, Uzumaki, this entire area is completely sterile with the exception of that hair. For another, we just walked straight into a genjutsu." He turned calmly to the left. "Hello, Orochimaru."

xXx

_Yes, ladies and gents, the cliffie-bitch is _back_ in business. I'll write the next chapter of Truth or Dare, maybe a promptfic or two and then get back to this. Incidentally, all of my promptfics are from Naruto fandom if you're interested. Lol._

_I have holidays in a week, two weeks off. You can rest assured I'll be writing my ass off. Aiming for a chapter a day again, although I doubt I'll succeed._


	12. Chapter 11

"Would you mind taking the genjutsu down so the others here can see you, Orochimaru

_I know I promised a lot of you a week, but things came up and it's only a few days over? Forgive me?_

_I'd write something longer, but I'm getting kicked off the net. I can't write Orochimaru/ Feel free to berate, but I hope you like the chapter! (It's epic)_

xXx

Kushina lunged in the direction Uchiha was facing, but Tsume had been expecting it – the woman was so enraged, she wasn't concentrating on her speed so the other mother was able to grab her before she did something stupid.

"Take the genjutsu down, Orochimaru," Uchiha ordered.

There was a pause in which Tsume assumed Orochimaru was replying. A wave of fear rolled off the Uchiha, although he hid it remarkably well.

"Quit being such a pussy, Uchiha," she growled, grunting as her captive started to struggle. She, laid her claws against the woman's throat. "Kushina, I swear that if you don't calm the hell down, I will slit your jugular right here and now."

"You wouldn't."

"You want your orphan back? You won't take the chance."

Kushina growled, but stopped struggling.

"When did she become Kushina?" Kuromaru barked.

"Shut up. Can you see through the genjutsu?" She didn't particularly care that Orochimaru was listening, as Kuromaru would bark his response back anyway.

"No. Seems like he's prepared pretty damn well. Something smells off though."

"Yeah, I'm getting that too."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist," Uchiha said, ignoring Tsume.

She had no skill in genjutsu or the breaking of genjutsu, and thinking that Uzumaki did was laughable. The Hyuuga, Hokage and Sannin were different stories, however, and moments later Jiraiya's hand on her shoulder broke her out of the illusion.

Surprisingly enough, her immediate surroundings didn't change. In fact, the only thing that happened was the sudden appearance of Orochimaru in a nearby open doorway. He was glaring harshly, sibilant rasp of a voice directed at the Uchiha.

"…of very delicate experiments that, if tampered with, could potentially endanger the whole Village."

"Do you have permission for such experiments, Orochimaru?"

The snake-bastard chuckled. "Shouldn't you know that, Police Chief?"

Hyuuga rolled his freaky eyes. "Your incompetence astounds me, Uchiha. And to think the safety of the Village is in _your_ hands?"

Something was definitely off. A strange smell in the air, although she had no idea what it was. Uchiha snapped something back at the Hyuuga who was about to retort when the Hokage told them to shut the hell up. Well, not in so many words, but the got the general idea. The old man stepped forward and started to talk to Orochimaru.

"Are you going to release Kushina from the genjutsu?" Tsume asked Jiraiya in a low voice, still holding tightly to the woman.

The white-haired sannin shrugged. "She hasn't got a chakra flow to disrupt. Orochimaru must've found away around that."

"Why would he bother?"

"At pretty much any given time you can be sure Kushina wants to kill Orochimaru. I can understand him wanted to protect his experiments."

"Yeah. But it's what kind of experiments that he's protecting that we need to be worried about."

The Sandaime frowned suddenly and a wide smirk spread across Orochimaru's face. Oddly enough, he still hadn't said anything to Jiraiya.

"What's going _on_," Kushina demanded, her voice thankfully sane. "Where the hell is Anko?"

Jiraiya frowned, staring at his friend. "Old man," he said slowly.

"What is it, Jiraiya?"

"That's not Orochimaru."

Everyone froze. Tsume would have laughed if it weren't for what happened next.

Orochimaru – or his doppelganger – snarled and lunged Kushina of all people. Tsume went to shove the woman out of the way only to find she was no longer there. A distinctly feminine grunt of pain came from the roof and Tsume looked up in time to see Kushina stabbing a kunai into her own hand.

Even battle-hardened jounin can be shocked by seeing a comrade mutilate themselves without warning, which was probably why no one moved fast enough to stop the fake Orochimaru from leaping to the roof, kunai in hand very obviously ready to kill.

"She can't see him!" Tsume roared, already moving but it was too late. Kushina disappeared from view and when she reappeared, her hand was sticking out of his back.

"Tsume, see to a medic-nin. Fugaku, Hiashi, scout the area inside," the Hokage ordered, moving instantly into battle mode even as he jumped to the roof. The Uchiha and the Hyuuga obeyed instantly. "Jiraiya, you go in after, Kushina and I will—"

Tsume was quite suddenly overwhelmed by the scent of _terror_. She bent at the waist, overcome, and hurled on the street. "The genjutsu's down," she croaked. "Orochimaru's fleeing the Village. North."

She had honestly expected Kushina to disappear then and there, hell-bent on revenge as she had seemed but to her utter shock Jiraiya disobeyed the Hokage's order and left at a run – north. Kushina herself, who had been staring at the dying man her arm had punched through, suddenly ripped it out again as his skin appeared to melt off.

"Jiraiya! Don't be stupid, come back here!" the Hokage called, but was ignored. He sighed and turned back to Tsume, who was slowly getting used to the horrific smell of terror. "Tsume, I trust you can catch up to him?"

She straightened, avoided the patch of vomit. "This will be a long mission, won't it Hokage-sama?"

"I'm afraid so, Tsume. Before you reach Jiraiya though, you must send someone for a healer so this fake is available for questioning. We still can't be certain if Orochimau did kidnap Mitarashi Anko, but it is looking more and more likely. We can organise for your children to be—"

"'S all right." She turned to the roof, where Kushina was staring at the dying man in abject fascination, waiting for orders. "Oi, Kushina! I'm gonna hunt down the snake-bastard for ya! You got room for two more in that mansion of yours?"

Kushina frowned. "The hell?"

"My kids, Uzumaki! Someone's gotta look after 'em and I sure as hell ain't leaving them in care! You got room?"

The woman froze, realising exactly what Tsume was asking and what she was _offering_.

Acceptance.

Tsume wasn't sure if she'd gone temporarily mad or what. But the Hokage loved his Village, wouldn't ever let any possible harm come to it even if it meant killing the son of his student. He'd proved that today, ordering a mission for the capture of his favourite student on suspicion of kidnapping with the only proof being the ramblings of a berserker.

Maybe she was taking a huge leap of faith. Or maybe she'd finally seen sense.

"Damn straight I've got room!"

Tsume grinned widely, matching Kushina's own. "All right then. Next time I see ya, me'n Jiraiya'll have the snake-bastard in chains for ya!" She whistled sharply. "C'mon, Kuromaru. We've got hunting to do."

xXx

"Hayate, pass me another roll of bandage would you?" Rin asked quietly.

Silently, the boy did so. Iruka broke off his game with a cooing Naruto to glance over at them, but at the baby's cry of protest he jerked his head back. The air was thick with tension.

"Jeez, who died?" Kakashi croaked, trying to crack a smile under his mask.

"Shut up, Kakashi," Rin murmured. "It's not fucking funny."

"Man, you've got no sense of humour."

"No, you're just fucking insane!" she yelled.

Naruto, startled, started to cry. Around his wailing, the heavy silence fell again.

"I don't think you get it. Your _rib_ pierced your _lung_. She could have fucking killed you."

Kakashi attempted to struggle to a sitting position in protest, but Rin shoved him – gently – back down.

"Don't blame her," he said, voice deathly soft and it was an order, not a request.

"Don't make threats when you're halfway dead, Kakashi," Rin retorted.

"I'm not making a damn threat," he growled, arching slightly as she prodded at his wound. "She love Anko like—"

"Yeah, and she loves you too! Fuck, Kakashi, why're you—" She cut herself off, glancing around at the children who were frozen. Even Naruto had stopped crying.

"To your room," Rin ordered. When they didn't move, she frowned. "_Now_."

They scrambled.

"I can't believe you're defending her! I mean goddamn, Kakashi! I love her too, and I care about Anko, but this is…this is beyond belief!"

"If you can't believe it, don't try," Kakashi clipped out. "Don't let your feelings cloud the sit—"

"Feelings?" She laughed incredulously. "_You're_ going to preach to me about fucking feelings? Don't lecture me on something you know nothing about."

Silence once again. Rin secured the bandage and ran a healing hand over his chest to make sure everything was in order.

"That was below the belt," he said finally.

"I don't fucking care," she mumbled, biting back tears. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair.

"Rin—"

"We were a team," she interrupted, voice deceptively calm. "Before Uzumaki Kushina was a part of our lives. And I love her like an older sister, but I love you _more_. So forgive me if I take your side in this."

Kakashi sighed. "Rin, there's no _sides_ h—"

The door crashed off its hinges.

"Why hello, my Brave and Noble fellows!"

Rin felt her eyes widen in horror as she watched Kakashi's one do the same.

"Oh, fuck no," she whispered.

"Sandaime-sama has requested that I, Maito Gai, escort a medic-nin to assist with the retrieval of Mitarashi Anko! So of course I immediately thought of my Honoured and Youthful com—"

"They've found her?" Rin exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

Gai's face fell all the way to his lurid orange leg warmers. "A thousand apologies, Rin-san! I do not know! In punishment, I shall—"

"Nonono, don't worry about that," she said hastily. "Just…uh…escort me to, um…Hokage-sama. Please," she added belatedly.

"Indeed!" The blindingly green man presented his back to her. "Ride on my back, Treasured Comrade, and I will ensure we reach Hokage-sama in…"

Sheer horror blocked his voice out. From behind her she heard a chuckle that quickly morphed into a cough as she whipped around to glare at her friend. Some friend.

"Shut up," she growled as she clambered on to Gai's readily offered back.

"I didn't say a word."

"I can hear you thinking from over here."

"So I didn't need to say anything then, did I?" A pause. "Are you…will you have enough chakra to heal whoever it is after this? I can lend you some—"

"Don't be fu – don't be stupid." Rin only swore in front of family. "You need that strength. Get the kids to run around after you or something, keep them busy. And I'll be fine."

xXx

"Touji Masuyo," the Sandaime said softly. He'd performed some sort of jutsu on the man that held him in stasis until the medic-nin could arrive. "Why?"

No answer. Kushina got fed up with waiting and grabbed the dying man by the throat.

"Where the hell is Mitarashi Anko?"

The white-haired man spat blood. "Whore."

"Oh jeez, because I've never been called that before." She wiped the last of the man's blood off on his shirt. "At least, I'm hoping he was talking about me." She glanced at the Hokage. "Answer the goddamn question."

"Why? I'm dying anyway, demon bitch."

She pulled out a length of nin-wire and looped it around his neck. "Because if you don't, I'll make sure that your death is lasting, and _painful_. How does a slow dismemberment by nin-wire sound?"

The man, already pale from blood loss, whitened further. "Sh-she's in the lab. She's d-dead already, she has t-to be, Orochimaru-sama said he, said he wouldn't leave until she was. She fought him!" The man started to cackle insanely, blood bubbling from his lips. "No-one fight Orochimaru-sama…I was going to kill her for her, but Orochimaru wanted to test…he wanted to test the seal further…her screams were more than fitting…a fitting revenge…"

"The statis has worn off," the Hokage noted. "Ask what you want now, Kushina, in case the medic-nin doesn't get here in—"

Forgoing a kunai once again, Kushina plunged her hand straight through the man's heart. It did not stop there, however, the extreme forced dispatching a sizable amount of roof. Kushina the ripped her hand out of the very dead man's body and jumped through the resulting hole.

_Not dead, not dead, she can't be dead, not my Anko, she's _not_ dead._ Kushina shook her hand, scattering the remnants of the man's heart. The only light in the damn place came from her impromptu skylight and even that faded the further she went in.

Her own heart seemed to be beating unnaturally fast, her pulse thrumming an erratic tattoo against her throat.

"Oi!" she yelled, refusing to admit that it was more of a scream. "Hyuuga! Uchiha! Have you found her? _Oi!_"

A door creaked open to her left and she skidded to a sudden stop. Of course, at the speed she was going, she nearly ended up down the next corridor.

"Uzumaki?"

That was the Uchiha's voice, but it wasn't filled with spite or loathing. Kushina jogged this time, not wanting to make the same mistake twice and when he came in to view...

When he came in to view…

"Anko!" she cried out and she must have _flown_ forwards, because she sure as hell didn't remember moving. "Anko! Are you – is she…?" Kushina looked up at the Uchiha and the Hyuuga behind him, two sets of unreadable eyes. She shook the girl, who looked outwardly unharmed. "Anko? _Anko?_"

"She's dead, Uzumaki."

"Shut the hell up." Kushina's voice dropped into a growl.

"You can't—"

"Give her to me," the woman demanded. The Uchiha hesitated. What the hell was _wrong_ with him? "Give her to me!"

"Uchiha, let her hold the girl. She won't believe you, otherwise."

Like their eyes, their voices were unreadable.

Kushina had managed to adjust to the bad lighting, and her eyes were centred on Anko's unresponsive face as she carefully took the gennin from the Uchiha.

"Anko-chan," she whispered. "Wake up. I'm here. It's Kushina."

Nothing.

Gently, Kushina knelt on the ground so she wouldn't drop the girl. Something caught her eye and she frowned, shifting aside the collar of Anko's shirt to get a better look.

A seal. Orochimaru had marked her with some sort of _seal?_ Anger boiled hard and hot in Kushina's veins as her hand brushed against the girl's throat and felt no pulse. She was going to—

And felt…no…pulse?

"Uzumaki."

And then she realised. Their eyes, their voices, they weren't unreadable, they were _alien_.

Alien because they were full of pity and the Uchiha and the Hyuuga never pitied anything.

Except, perhaps, dead children.

"Kushina-nee-chan?"

Rin?

Rin! Rin was a medic-nin! She could – she could _fix_ this!

_Can't heal death, Uzumaki._

_Shut the fuck up._

"Rin! Rin, come quick, Anko's…Anko's…"

"She's dead, girl," the Uchiha said as Rin ran forward. "Don't bother."

"I'll be the one to confirm that, thank you very much," the girl replied coolly, shoving past him and dropping to her knees next to Kushina and Anko. "Nee-chan? Do you mind…?"

Kushina quickly moved away, ready to do whatever it took for Anko to be not-dead.

_Can't heal death._

_I fucking said shut _up!

"There's no discernable pulse," Rin muttered under her breath. "And some sort of weird seal…Kushina-nee-chan, can you pick her up? I need some proper light and I can't—"

Kushina promptly kicked in another section of roof. She seemed to be working on auto-pilot. Probably because if she didn't she'd go berserk again.

"Oh. Well, uh, that works too."

"She's dead. You said it yourself, girl, there is no pulse." It was the Hyuuga who said it this time.

"I'll thank you to let me do my job," Rin ground up, gently pulling Anko's body up to look at her neck before, bizarrely, feeling around in her mouth. She sighed, and Kushina's heart clenched.

"She's not dead."

"She has no _pulse!_"

"She's not dead," Rin continued as the news slowly sunk into Kushina's brain. _Not…dead?_ The medic-nin held up something that glinted dully in the light. "She is, in fact, very, very smart."

Two needles.

And everything slotted together. Kushina even had needles hidden in her _own_ mouth in case a time came were she needed to appear dead.

"Paralyzed," she said in a voice choked with tears. "She paralyzed herself. Death simulation." Her body folded in on itself in relief, head hanging over Anko's inert body.

"What's up with this seal, anyway?" Rin asked, taking a closer look.

Kushina shook her head, pulling herself together. It wouldn't do to fall apart in front of those two men, not now that Anko was alive. "I don't know. I don't care. I'm just glad that she's alive." She gathered the girl into her arms and stood. "C'mon, let's get the hell outta here. This place gives me the creeps."

xXx

_Jeez. That was a bitch to write. Hope you liked it anyway!_


	13. Chapter 12

_All right! Here's the next instalment of Reset, and it's pretty epic if I do say so myself. And I do, although you may disagree. Feel free to debate with me about it over reviews. Also, if any of you knows who the fucker is that decided flaming me about the nonexistent NaruSasu content in this story, could ya please point him out to me?_

_He thinks I'm a man. I disagree with this on all sorts of levels._

_Also, I'm thinking about making The Naruto Effect NaruSasuSaku. It's just an idea, but they're one of my favourite romance stories. And The Naruto Effect isn't even a romance, so any romance is gonna take back seat regardless._

_Anyway! Forget about that for now, it's a long way away. Just enjoy the chapter. I hope you enjoy the chapter…_

xXx

The first thing Anko noticed when she started waking up was the fact that she was waking up. There was something strange about that, almost as if she…

Almost as if she shouldn't be.

She cracked one eye open slightly, but nothing changed. So it was night. Vague feeling was starting to flow back into her limbs and she became aware of two small lumps draped across her legs.

"…don't know when she'll wake up, nee-chan. The paralysis has almost completely faded, but…well, she's completely out of chakra. Even my superiors can't figure out how that happened, but it nearly killed her – the only thing that stopped her from being drained to death was shoving the needles into her neck and _that_ nearly killed her because she shoved them all the way in to hide them."

"What about her eyes? Will she ever—" She knew that voice. She _knew_ that voice.

"I don't know, nee-chan. I really don't. But it's a miracle that she's _alive_, so maybe we should just take hope from that."

A snort. "Hope. Right."

A piercing cry broke the air and a soft curse came from Anko's left. She let her eyes fall shut, brain too tired to process the information she'd just received.

"Damn kid's louder than Naruto. Dunno how Tsume puts up with it. Hana-chan, would you mind getting your brother for me? I've got my hands full here."

"Yes, Kushina-san."

_Kushina?_

Maybe it was time to open her eyes fully.

"What…happened?" Anko managed to croak, blinking hard to clear her eyes.

Only, they didn't clear. "Anko! You're awake! Rin, hold Naruto, would you?" A pair of strong arms threw themselves around the small girl. Hesitantly, Anko hugged back before breaking down completely and clinging to the woman she knew was her sensei.

"Kushina?" Vague fingers of panic started to claw at her heart. "Kushina, I can't see anything."

One of the lumps lying across her legs stirred. "Whassat?" The voice was sleepy, but it was undeniably that of her idiot team-mate, Umino Iruka. "Anko? Anko's awake?"

"Kushina-nee-chan, why can't I see?" Anko clenched her eyes shut because at least then she had a reason for everything to be black. She barely even realised that she'd just called her sensei her sister. "Why can't I see?"

"What?" Iruka's loud voice caused the not-Naruto baby to start squalling. "She's—"

"Umino." That was Gekko's voice and dimly Anko registered the second lump across her legs moving even as Kushina pulled her closer. The woman wasn't speaking and Anko couldn't figure out why. "Shut up."

"But—"

"Rin, take the kids away, would you?" The words were said against the girl's neck which, incidentally, hurt like a _bitch._

"Kushina—"

"Please, Rin. It's my fault this happened to her. I need to be the one to explain."

Silence. Anko counted Kushina's slow breaths and didn't open her eyes. Her hands knotted in the woman's shirt.

"Fine," the medic-nin sighed. "But don't go blaming yourself _again_. The only one at fault here is Orochimaru."

The name thrummed through Anko's body like a jolt of lightning and she cried out, eyes flying open. "No!"

It was still dark.

xXx

When Kushina had been told that Anko's optic nerves had been near-destroyed as a result of having so much chakra forcibly drawn out of her body, she died a little inside.

Upon hearing Anko's raw scream at the sound of Orochimaru's name, however, it came roaring back to life, slavering for blood.

The girl had a death grip on her, but Kushina certainly wasn't going to tell her to let go as Rin herded the various children out of the door.

"What happened?" Anko mumbled into her shoulder. "I don't – I can't…what _happened?_"

Strangely, the thought had never occurred to Kushina that Anko wouldn't remember. Stupid of her – what person would _want_ to remember being kidnapped by Orochimaru and then have who-knew-what done to them?

She shifted so she was lying properly in the hospital bed, cradling the girl in her arms and Anko moved so she was clutching the front of her shirt as opposed to digging her fingers into her back, eyes clenched shut. Even though they were almost of a height, the girl felt incredibly small. It hit Kushina that she'd probably had little or nothing to eat since her abduction.

"What's that last thing you remember?" she asked quietly, trying to hold down the anger and remain calm. This Anko was nothing like the Anko she'd known before and no wonder – the girl had been willing to die to escape from Orochimaru. The anger flared again, and she thrust it brutally down. Anko didn't need a rampaging bitch, she need a teacher. Or a sister. Or a mother. Whatever. She needed someone who was going to support her. The screaming for blood could come later.

Anko's eyes were still tightly shut. "I was having a shower and then…I don't know. I don't know." She started to hyperventilate, hands curling into claws. "I can't remember what happened to me, Kushina-nee-chan, I can't remember I can't—" She cut herself off suddenly. "Oh god, I can't breathe. I can'tIcan'tIcan't—"

Thankfully, Kushina had dealt with hyperventilation before, so she didn't need to call for Rin or something. Quickly, she placed her hand over Anko's mouth and pinched one of her nostrils shut. The girl's eyes flew open, wide and unseeing.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Anko-chan," she said softly. "You're hyperventilating. That means that there's too much oxygen and not enough carbon dioxide in your blood, so we have to slow down the oxygen, all right?"

Her eyes widened further as if she was stretching to see, but they were unfocussed. _Blind_. She nodded, shakily, and her hands started to uncurl, spasming once or twice.

"Better?" There was something about looking after other people – especially children – that brought out the mother in Kushina.

Anko nodded again, eyes shut once more.

"I…remember," she said quietly. "Bits and pieces. Flashes. Being strapped down. Others…and his face." She moaned, broken. "His face…"

_Others?_ Kushina knew that Uchiha had ordered a team to thoroughly examine the abandoned laboratory, but she hadn't heard anything of the results. Knowing Uchiha, she probably wouldn't. "It's all right, Anko." She winced, knowing how completely stupid that sounded. It_ wasn't_ all right. "You're away from him now. Jiraiya and Inuzuka Tsume are hunting down Orochimaru, and Tsume's the best tracker in the Village. We'll get him back and—"

"Will you kill him for me, nee-chan?" Anko asked softly.

Kushina blinked, more at the girl calling her sister than her request. If she were Anko, she would have asked someone to kill the bastard for her as well.

She pulled her genin closer.

"Yeah, Anko. I'll kill him for you."

xXx

Inuzuka Hana wasn't entirely sure what was happening. Earlier that day, some people had knocked down the front door. Her mother had ordered her to look after her younger brother before disappearing with those people. At six years old, Hana's senses weren't fully developed, but she was good enough to smell the tension in the air, and the _rage_ that had rolled off the woman with red hair made her want to throw up.

She had just finished fixing the door when her mother had broken it down again, kissed her on the forehead and told her that Uzumaki Kushina would be looking after her for a while.

Now, Hana couldn't be certain, but she was pretty sure that before her mother had left the house, she hadn't liked Uzumaki Kushina. In, fact, she'd told Hana once or twice to stay far away from the motley crew living in Hokage Mansion. Which was a shame, really, because Umino Iruka was staying there and before the monster attacked, he'd been teaching her how to whistle with a blade of grass. A grass whistle, he called it.

However, Hana had learnt in her six short years to never question her mother's authority, so she'd shrugged and started to fix the door again, waiting for this Uzumaki-san to come pick her and her brother up.

The red haired woman had showed up with a baby in her arms, which was strange because Hana thought Kiba had met all the babies his age in the Village. But this baby looked nothing like his mother, with his bright hair and brighter eyes looking curiously around the Inuzuka house. In fact, he looked sort of like a person Hana couldn't remember.

She'd sat quietly in the corner of a hospital room while Uzumaki-san whispered at the medic-nin. The girl in the bed was from the Uzumaki household, and so was the medic-nin. Hana wondered briefly why the medic-nin smelled so angry at Uzumaki-san when she sounded so nice out loud, then Kiba had started crying and Uzumaki-san had asked her to look after him.

Hana liked that. Most people treated her like a little _kid_ or something, when she was in her second year at the Academy and had survived that long in a class with Uchiha _Itachi_ of all people. Her mother let her look after Kiba all the time – insisted on it, in fact. It was good to know that at least some people in this world had sense.

"Are you all right, Hana-chan?" the medic-nin asked. Her named was Rin, and Hana thought it was kind of pretty. Rin the medic-nin.

"I'm fine, Rin-san," she replied quietly, smiling up at the girl. Or was she a woman? She was in that sort of half-way time that Hana didn't really understand. "Are _you_ okay?"

Rin-san looked taken aback. "U-uh…yes."

"Oh." Hana turned her face back to her brother, who was straining to walk away from her. Dogs weren't allowed in the hospital, so his puppy Akamaru had been taken back to the Uzumaki house, where apparently there was still someone else to make sure he didn't destroy anything _too_ important. "That's weird. Because you smell sorta angry and upset."

The medic jerked a little, which looked sort of funny, before turning sad and tired eyes to the two boys standing on her other side, handing the baby – Naruto-kun – to Iruka-san. "Go back to the house, would you boys? Take Hana-chan and Kiba-kun with you."

"Butbutbut—"

Hayate-san laid a hand on Iruka-san's shoulder. "C'mon, Iruka."

"_Hayate_."

"She'll just make us do it anyway." He coughed and then scowled, waves of irritation reaching Hana's nose.

She _liked_ these people. There were all sorts of interesting smells hanging around them. Maybe after spending some more time with them, she'd finally be able to beat Itachi-kun.

"Ne, Iruka-san?" she asked, following the two older boys out of the hospital. "Do you think you could teach me how to use that grass-whistle again?"

xXx

When Kushina woke up, she was immediately aware of the other presence in the hospital room.

Well, the _other_ other presence. Not Anko, who had fallen asleep in Kushina's arms long before the jounin had managed to exhaust herself to sleep, but someone else.

"What're you doin' in here, K'kashi?" she mumbled, fumbling around for the lamp.

"Don't turn the light on," he said softly. "You'll wake Anko up."

"Ohrigh'…" Her groggy brain began to pull her thoughts together and when it finally succeeded, she nearly jolted right out of bed. The only thing that stopped her was the fact that she would have woken Anko up. "Damn, Kakashi. I'm so—"

"Don't," he growled, and his voice was harsher than she'd ever heard it. "Don't apologize." There was a creaking sound as he stood up. "Gimme your feet."

She blinked in surprise. "But—"

"I don't want you to say sorry," he reiterated, voice softer this time. "Just don't, all right? Think of it as a favour to me for nearly kicking my stomach out my throat. Now give me your feet."

Kushina was at a bit of a loss. "Why do you want my feet?" she asked dumbly.

He held up a hand and Minato's anklets glinted in the dim light. "Found these. You want 'em back?"

"How did you—?" She thought she'd lost them over the course of the long day. Which was, technically, yesterday. "I thought—"

"Sharingan's good for more than just copying jutsu," he murmured, apparently getting fed up with waiting for her as he tugged at the blankets of the hospital bed.

And it was _now_ of all times, as her best friend drew the familiar weights around her ankles, that tears pricked her eyes. "Shit," she whispered. "_Shit._ You should be in bed, healing. _Shit._"

Instead of making some sort of smart comment as was his usual wont, Kakashi remained remarkably serious as the tears started to fall, silently clasping the other anklet. Kushina turned her head to the side so that the tears wouldn't fall on Anko.

Kakashi tucked the blanket back in and stood again. Wordlessly, he dragged his chair up to her side of the bed and gently took her hand.

Nothing else was said. Eventually, Kushina cried herself out, clinging desperately to Kakashi's hand even as she fell slowly back into sleep.

xXx

Kakashi didn't go to sleep that night.

"Fuck."

xXx

…_I only expect one of you to understand that line. And that's you, Nam. Although I wouldn't be completely surprised if some else got its significance._

_Anyways! CHAPTER IN A DAY! AGAIN! I AM ON FY-YA_

_I hope you enjoyed Chapter In A Day. And curse you FFN for not letting me use my funny symbols. I love my funny symbols and you are _depriving_ me of them._

_And yeah, something I've been deprived of lately _is_ sleep. How on earth could you tell?_


	14. Chapter 13

I'm sorry! I had my dear laptop back for over a week before I even started writing this. Reset just somehow ended up on the bottom of the chapter-fic-update pile. Considering I know have four…five? chapter fics, it took a while to get this up.

But! It's here now! And I sure hope you enjoy!

xXx

"_Hey, Kushina-chan."_

_Fourteen-year-old Uzumaki Kushina looked up at the source of the cheery voice and throttled a blush. "Oh. It's you."_

"_Such an enthusiastic greeting!" he teased, flopping down in the grass next to her. "What are you up to?"_

"_Thinking," she replied shortly, looking around at the trees. The Village Hidden in the Lake hadn't had any trees. "Wouldn't expect you to understand what it's like."_

"_This coming from you?"_

"_Oh, shut up."_

_She had been in the Leaf Village for just under a year now, in the care of the Sandaime Hokage himself. As such, she'd seen a lot of his student, the prodigy Namikaze Minato who had tried to save her Village. _

"_You can give it, but you can't take it, eh?'_

"_I'm not in the mood for your idiocy."_

"_So serious!" He pulled a face at her and laughed at the glare she shot back. "Maa, Kushina-chan, you need to loosen up a little."_

"_If someone from my Village heard you say that, they'd think you were crazy," Kushina said softly. _

"_I know." He winked at her startled glance. "I was at your chuunin exam, remember? I was a part of the Konoha delegation." He pulled another face, this one a comical grimace. She choked on a giggle. "Man, you were fantastic. I don't think I ever saw anyone run that fast in my life."_

"_Not fast enough," she replied softly, sombre again._

_A pause._

"_The anniversary's coming up, huh?"_

"_Four days." She buried her face in her hands. "I wanted to be there, but it's all Water Country now. Hostile territory. It all happened so fast…"_

"_Water Country is our ally, Kushina-chan. I'm sure--"_

_She gave him a bitter smile "You're too idealistic for your own good, Namikaze. It'll get you killed one day. I already asked the old man."_

"_He said no?"_

"_Oh, no. He said he'd think about it. Of course, it took him a whole two months to think about it and now it's too late to go."_

_He frowned. "I thought you made the trip in two days?"_

_She rolled her eyes. "And nearly killed myself doing it. Doesn't matter anyway - of course, being an Uzumaki, even a defective, and daughter of the Hidden Lake Village Kage, I need an escort. And no escort could make that trip in four days."_

"_Don't call yourself a defective! And, well…it wouldn't have to be the exact day, would it?"_

"_Don't be so naïve, Namikaze. It's just an excuse. The old man's not going to let me leave, especially not to go into foreign territory." She stared at her hands, laced with scars from years of hard work. "It's a nice place, Konoha, but that doesn't make it any less of a prison."_

_Silence._

_Then Namikaze grinned, grabbed her hand and hauling her to her feet as he stood. "Come with me."_

"_What? Namikaze, what the hell are you doing?"_

"_I've got an idea. I've been working on a new jutsu. You could say you inspired it, really, so I guess it's fitting you're the first person I show it to."_

"_What are you _on_ about?" she growled as he dragged her through the trees. "What do you mean, I inspired a jutsu? Since when were you good at coming up with techniques anyway?"_

"_Hey, what about Rasengan?" he exclaimed, momentarily distracted._

"_A fluke," she shot back. "And it doesn't count anyway, you haven't completed it. Now tell me what the hell you're on about before I castrate you."_

"_Whoa! Hold up, I'm trying to do you a favour here!"_

"Namikaze…_" They were still crashing through the undergrowth, Kushina easily keeping up with the nineteen-year-old._

"_Okay, okay! Basically I was thinking about how fast you are, and I thought that if I could be as fast as you are, I could have gotten to your Village in time to save everyone."_

_She snorted. "You're good, Namikaze, but even you couldn't hold off an army."_

"_Yeah, I know, but it's the theory that matters here, all right? I couldn't ever reach your level even if I trained as long as you did, because you started training so young. Of course, I could use chakra, but we already have a jutsu like that and it's just a waste of energy, really." He was talking fast now, eyes bright just like when he'd been describing the Rasengan to her. "So I though, what about teleportation?"_

_Physically, Kushina was stronger than him, so when she came to a sudden halt he stopped too, jerked back against her weight._

_He frowned at her. "What?"_

"_You're not serious."_

"_I'm perfectly serious! I've been working on it for almost a year now, and it finally worked today! That's what I was coming to tell you - I was planning on showing you first anyway, but now I have a really good reason."_

"Kami_, Minato, do you not know the meaning of impossible?"_

_He grinned widely at her. "Nothing's impossible, Kushina-chan. Not if you keep trying. For example, I seem to remember a certain red-head declaring that she world never use my first name…"_

_Kushina blushed as he tweaked her nose. She stamped on his foot._

"_Hey! That hurt!" he laughed._

"_Baby." A pause. "Do you…are you really saying you can get me home?"_

_He gave her a serious look. "Would I joke about something like this?"_

xXx

When she woke up, Kushina was crying.

"Bad dream?"

She scowled, rubbing furiously at her eyes before slowly easing herself into a sitting position, careful not to wake Anko. "The worst."

Kakashi was slumped in the chair next to her, looking like he hadn't slept at all.

"Don't tell me you spent the whole night here."

"Hmm?" His one visible eye was bloodshot as he looked blearily at her. "Oh, no. Just been waiting for you to wake up." He stretched, and Kushina winced upon hearing several bones pop painfully in his back.

There was knock on the door, but before either Kakashi or Kushina had the time to answer, it slid open with a bang.

In her sleep, Anko jerked and Kushina glared at Rin.

"Hey! Sleeping victim here!" she hissed.

She was taken aback by Rin's equally poisonous glare. "How could you let him sleep here?" she growled. "In a _chair_! It's bad enough that you nearly kill him in the first place, but then you have to go and ruin his recovery?"

"Rin." Kakashi's voice was like a crack of lightning. It was quiet, so as not to wake Anko, but no less intense.

"_Don't_. Don't you _dare_ tell me off for caring about you, Kakashi. Especially when it seems I'm the only one."

Kushina was aware that she was gaping a little, but she didn't seem able to do anything about it. "I - I didn't - He said…"

"He. _Lies. _You know that, Kushina!"

It was the first time, ever, that Rin had used her name without a suffix, and that hurt more than anything the girl had said before.

Kakashi was glaring at the girl, his one eye almost dangerous. "_Rin._ She was asleep."

The medic-nin, who had opened her mouth to say something, closed it with a sharp click. "You're an idiot, Kakashi," she said eventually.

There was something going on here that Kushina didn't quite understand. Screw that, she didn't understand it at all. The atmosphere was heavy, so instead of adding to it with her confusion, she changed the subject.

"Rin, where are the kids?" She couldn't exactly be angry with the girl when what she was saying was totally right. Kakashi was a fifteen year old idiot, and despite the fact that she treated him like an adult, she still had to look out for him. Kicking him in the ribs and nearly killing him did not fall under that category, no matter how out of it she'd been.

Rin stared at her. "I left them with Sarutobi-sama," she said tightly. "I'm not a babysitter."

"I didn't say you--"

She broke off as Kakashi stood, grabbing Rin's hand. Without saying a word, he proceeded to drag her from the room.

"What the - hey! Kakashi! Let go of me! Kakashi!"

Next to Kushina, Anko stirred. She was about to yell at them for being so inconsiderate, when the door slammed shut.

xXx

"Stop it."

"Kakashi, I'm just looking out for you."

"Don't."

Silence.

"What?"

"Don't look out for me. I don't need your help. I don't want it."

He turned and walked back into the hospital room, leaving Rin feeling vaguely as if her heart should have been splattered on the ground somewhere.

xXx

"Did we wake her up?"

Kushina looked up from where her hand had been gently stroking Anko's hair. "Almost. Kakashi, what's going on?"

"Rin's being overprotective," he shrugged. "So are you, actually. I've taken worse wounds before."

"Yeah, you have. From _enemies_."

He dumped himself into the chair he'd slept in that night. "Look, does it really matter? It's over and done with now. I'm up and walking, because Rin always puts too much into her healing. Just make sure not to kill me next time."

"Next time?"

He winked at her. "You know there'll be a next time."

"I don't want there to be a next time!"

"You're not the only one who can be overprotective, Kushina, and I'm not the only one who does stupid things." He scratched his chin, looking speculatively at the ceiling. "Maybe next time I'll actually be able to keep a hold of you."

She thwapped him on the shoulder. "You really are an idiot, kakashi."

"So they keep telling me."

xXx

The following week was achingly slow, as the medic-nin concluded that Anko was not going to remember what had happen to her, and that the chances of repairing her optic nerves were nil.

"I'm sorry, Anko-chan," Rin said quietly. "Tsunade-hime may have been able to do it, but no one knows where she is.

Kushina stood, covered in children. Or rather, Naruto was in her arm and Kiba was hanging off her back, clutching his puppy. "I'll find her."

Rin didn't look at her. "You have responsibilities. Or did you forget about them too?" And before Kushina had the chance to reply, the girl had swept out of the room.

The entire week had been like that. Kakashi had been staying with Kushina because the girl had thrown him out of their apartment.

Anko started laughing, and the red-head sighed. The girl had been back-sliding in the worst possible way, retreating back into that place were everything was funny because if it wasn't, it was too horrific to contemplate.

She giggled. "I'm never going to be a ninja, am I?" The giggling continued.

"Don't be stupid," Kushina snapped, the laughter and Rin's shortness making her bad-tempered. Anko stopped laughing, and she sighed. "Of course you're going to be a ninja."

"Kushina-nee-chan, I'm _blind. _Unless it's contagious, I doubt I'd be much use."

"You're not always going to be blind."

"You heard Rin. It's impossible."

"_You'll never be a ninja, Kushina. It's just not possible."_

"_I will!"_

"_Ninja have to be able to use chakra, and you _can't._"_

"_Nii-san! I'll show you! I be the best ninja ever!"_

"Nothing's impossible, Anko-chan. Not if you keep trying." She'd been thinking about how to get around Anko's handicap since that dream of Minato. "You're going to be a ninja. Better than that, you're going to be a damned _good_ one."

No laughter. Kushina wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

"You mean that?" the girl said in a small voice.

"It's a promise."

"_Remember this always, Kushina. Even if you give up your name, your birth right, remember this. An Uzumaki never goes back on their word."_

The next day, Kushina dragged her genin team down to the training grounds for the first time since Anko's disappearance.

"Right. Iruka, Hatake, how far are you willing to go to help Anko?"

Hana looked on interestedly, holding onto the back of her brother's shirt so he didn't get in the way.

The boys looked at each other. "She's our team member," Iruka said finally.

"What the idiot means, is anything," Hatake drawled.

"Oi!"

"Shut up!" Kushina held up her hands. "Right then. Good to know. Here, put these on." She tossed them each a blindfold. "No cheating. For this to work, you guys have to be as blind as Anko."

Anko laughed.

"All right. From now on, whenever you train, you train with blindfolds. I don't expect you to be able to much at all, at first, but that doesn't matter. For intents and purposes, when it comes to training, you are blind. You rely on your other senses to fight, or you do not fight. And when those senses are good enough that you can locate Kakashi when even I can't, I will enter you in the Chuunin Exams. And you will pass. Understand?"

"Kakashi? But that's impossible!"

"Nothing's impossible," she said, and flashed them the biggest smile she could sum up. It made her feel better, at least, even if they couldn't see it. "Just very, very difficult."

xXx

_All right! How was that? Kakashi is having a crisis…_

_Lol. Quite a few of you guessed what was going on with him in the last chapter. Let's see if anyone else can, eh?_


	15. Chapter 14

_Okay, this is really starting to piss me off. Every doc. I upload is underlined. First it repeated the first line I wrote in every doc. (regardless of whether or not I deleted it) and now this!_

_Anyway! Chapter 14! This...is 14, right? :can't remember:_

xXx

Kakashi glared at Rin.

Rin glared back.

xXx

It was sort of inevitable that Tsume had fallen into bed with Jiraiya. Despite the wild mane of hair, he was a good looking man, ripped and well-endowed. While on the hunt, he'd been stressed and tense over the betrayal of his friend - sex had released some of that tension so he could concentrate on the job at hand.

"Am I going to have to worry about an angry husband chasing after me?" he teased one night as they raced across Fire Country.

Tsume snorted. "Me? No way in hell. Shigeru decided to be a hero and got himself killed in a ninja fight a few days before Kiba was born. Probably a good thing - he would have spoiled the kid rotten. Would've ruined Hana if it weren't Clan tradition that all Inuzuka females are ninja."

"You don't sound to fond of him."

"I wasn't. Loved the bastard, but didn't like him all that much. He didn't get the hole ninja thing. Civilian," she added at the confused look on Jiraiya's face. "What about you? Should I be prepared to run from a hord of screaming angry women?"

He chuckled, scratching at his chin. "Sure, but they won't be after you."

"Oh, you're the love 'em and leave 'em type, eh?"

"More just the leave 'em."

Their banter was interrupted by Kuromaru's return from scouting ahead.

"Bad news, boss."

"Jeez, what else could go wrong?" Tsume growled. As well as Jiraiya knew Orochimaru, it seemed the snake-Sannin knew him better. They'd been beset by ambushes throughout the hunt, barely half of which Jiraiya had been able to detect. It had only been due to quick thinking that they'd survived the ones he'd missed.

"False trail, Tsume. We've been going the wrong way for five weeks now."

xXx

Kakashi glared at Rin.

Rin glared back.

xXx

"Itachi-kun!" Hana ran to catch up to the boy, who was wanderinf through the streets of Konoha for the first time in months. She waved her hand, a piece of grass clenched tightly in her fist. "Itachi-kun, wait up!" She put on a burst of speed and grinned at the result, feet flying across the ground as a result of two months of training with Kushina-san.

"You're faster," he said in greeting when she caught up.

She grinned breathlessly, happy that he'd noticed. "Where've you been? I've hardly seen you since the Kyuubi attack."

"Several missions. Back to back." He wasn't that much older than her, but Itachi still talked like an old man. His voice was soft though, and nice to listen to. Even if he was short with her, she knew he wasn't being mean. That was just the way he was.

There was a strange look on his face as he spoke though, something that Hana couldn't quite understand. It was weird, but she was sure she'd seen that look on adult's faces before. Usually after a mission.

Except, it was usually more obvious on the adults. Because Itachi was an Uchiha, and Uchiha didn't have faces, most of the time.

"Itachi! Oi, Itachi!"

Uchiha Shisui was running towards them. Before she was living with Kushina-san, Hana had quite liked Shisui. But over the past two months, he'd been treating her like she was stupid or something, and Hana wasn't stupid. Shisui was stuid for _thinking _she was stupid. They had a test coming up in the Academy soon though. Hana would show Shisui just how much smarter she was than him then.

"Man, you wouldn't believe what they've been saying about us while you've been gone, Itachi." Shisui slowed to a jog. "Oh, hey Hana-chan." There was that _tone_ to his voice that she hated as he skidded to a stop and turned back to Itachi, easily dismissing her. "Uzumaki - _Uzumaki -_ made me leave the training grounds _three times_ last week. Three times! Just cos she'd blocked it for her stupid blind kids or something. Doesn't she know who I am?"

Hana was of the opinion that Shisui's head was getting too big for his brain.

"She would have said that to _anyone_," Hana argued.

Shisui gave her a pitying look. "That's the _point_, Hana-chan. The Uchiha _aren't _just anyone."

Maybe that big empty space between his brain and the rest of his head was filled up with italics?

The boy turned back to Itachi, who was staring at him impassively. "And Hana-chan! Itachi, they've forced Hana-chan to live with the demon-kid!"

"Hey!" Naruto was the cutest thing Hana had ever seen, and he was only a demon when he was hungry. "Naruto isn't a demon!" Except when he's hungry.

She got that pitying look again. "See? Brainwashing."

"Ironic," Itachi murmured.

"Eh?" Shisui blinked.

Hana didn't know what ironic meant, but the way Itachi said it made her think he was on her side.

"You sound like you father, Shisui," Itachi announced, although his voice was still soft.

Shisui beamed. "Thanks!"

Hana got the feeling it hadn't been a compliment.

xXx

Kakashi glared at Rin.

Rin frowned, and turned away.

xXx

_The moment she set eyes upon him, she punched him in the jaw._

"_Hey! What was that for!"_

"_Your face," she shot back irritably._

"_My face what?" Blue eyes widened in confusion._

"_Just - your face!" she countered, before turning her back on him and huffing._

_She could feel Minato's frown._

"_Kushina-chan?"_

"_You were a week overdue," she mumbled._

_Silence._

_Then--_

"_Did you miss me, Kushina-chan?"_

_She spun around, outraged that he'd guessed right on his first guess. "No!"_

_He was grinning now. "You did! You missed me!"_

"_Yeah, I miss being able to beat your ass into the ground," she growled, hoping to throw him off._

_But he'd latched on to the idea now, grin widening as he leaned forward and tweaked her nose. She slapped his hands away._

"_You were worried about me, weren't you?"_

_She screwed her face up in a scowl and crossed her arms._

"_Yes." The word was clipped out, angry._

"_Aw, don't do that, Kushina-chan! You look sixteen, not six." He smiled gently at her and tapped her chin. Despite herself, her head lifted. "If it helps, I missed you too."_

_She strangled a blush, kicking her ridiculous crush back into the corner of her mind. "What, you didn't worry?"_

_The gentle smile morphed into that sun-bright grin. "Didn't need to, Kushina-chan. I know you can look out for yourself."_

xXx

Kakashi glared at Rin.

Rin shook her head slightly and looked confused.

xXx

"Kushina, I'm sorry but I can't give you that information."

She was beyond getting angry at things. Having spent the entire day with three children who insisted on not getting any better at blind-training, she was exhausted.

Kushina sighed, flopping back in her chair opposite the Sandaime. She shouldn't blame the kids - they _were _trying their hardest.

"Is this secret information like the kids sensei is secret information, or are we talking actual danger to Konoha stuff here?" she asked, flicking the hair-tie off her wrist and scrunching her hair up into a pony-tail.

Hesitation. "The latter," the old man admitted finally. "Well, for the most part. Orochimaru's experiments were not anything I'd wish for you to see, Kushina."

"I don't want all the sordid details. Just. Is Anko going to have any other problems?"

Orochimaru's notes on the seal had been found, some egotistical reminder of what he'd done. Notes taken during the period Anko had been kidnapped filled in the blanks she had in her memory, although no one had actually filled her in on what had happened yet. That may have had something to do with the fact that Kushina punted the first guy who suggested it through a wall.

It was a seal to draw out her chakra when she had nothing left. Kushina wasn't entirely sure of the logistics of it, only that the thing had taken Anko's eyesight from her, and Kushina wanted to make damn sure it wouldn't take anything else.

"It appears a desire for power controls the seal. The stronger the desire, the more eager it is to works. Orochimaru wrote that he saw none of that desire in Anko."

Elbows on desk, arms up and head on hands. Kushina slumped. "She doesn't have a drive for anything anymore. She was crazy before, but she was crazy with a purpose. Now it's like she's just existing."

The Sandaime was silent for a while.

"Reminds me of another young girl I knew once," he said softly. "Look at her now."

Kushina's breath caught in her throat. Despite all of their disagreements, she still loved the old man who'd taken her in and given her a home when she'd been left with nothing.

She choked out a laugh. "Crazy collector of children?"

"That too," he admitted. "But I was thinking more along the lines of strong, faithful, relentless kunoichi, actually."

She was ridiculously close to crying. "I don't feel strong or relentless," she mumbled. "Hell, sometimes I don't even feel faithful. I thought…I thought that when I was thirteen and everything and my entire life changed on me, that that was it. That was the one huge, awful thing in my life and I had my fresh start. And now it's like, every time things get so unbelievably amazing I almost _don't _believe it, everything crashes on me. First my family, my country. Then Minato and my _son. _And now…now this. Am I cursed? Is that it?"

Sarutobi was looking out over Konoha.

"Nine years ago, my wife died," he said quietly. "War was raging around my Village and I wasn't sure if it would survive long enough for names to be put on the memorial stone."

Kushina remained silent.

"And then Whirlpool Country was invaded, and a tiny girl with no chakra showed up in my Village claiming to be a chuunin who'd made the five day trip from Lake Village in two.

"And then I watched that little girl suffer through the worst horror imaginable. I watched her lose everything; her family, her home, her identity. And then I watched her build it all back up again." Sarutobi turned from his Village back to Kushina. "That was strength. That was relentlessness. But most of all, Kushina, that was a great deal of faith that things would get better again."

Kushina looked down at her hands. "I don't think I'm that person anymore, old man."

He shrugged. "So pretend."

"_What?_"

He looked amused. "Pretend. I know you're afraid now that if you build everything up it'll just fall down again, Kushina." Wow. Did he ever hit the old nail on the head. "But you have…" He frowned, and appeared to count something. "Six children relying on you right now, as well as two teenagers."

"Jeez, no pressure."

"Sometimes pressure is what you need to keep you holding on. If you can rebuild for yourself, Kushina, pretend for the sake of those children."

xXx

Kakashi glared at Rin.

Rin gave a hesitant smile and hugged him.

xXx

Kushina swung into her house, gathered up her various children and dragged them out to training field three.

"Uchiha!" she cried. "Outta my training field!"

Uchiha Shisui scowled at her before out of nowhere his cousin appeared and dragged him off.

Kushina blinked, frowned, and then shook it off. She didn't have time to be thinking about the anomaly that may or may not have been the real demon-child of Konoha.

"Right." She clapped her hands to garner the attention of her genin, who were all kitted up in their blindfolds. "Quite frankly, you guys suck at this. It's been two months, and you have made _no_ improvement, so it's time for another inspirational speech."

The blindfolds sort of obscured the boy's expressions, and Anko hadn't been wearing much of an expression at all over the past few weeks. Beside her, Hana held grimly onto the collars of an eleven-month-old Naruto and his fourteen-month-old counterpart, Kiba. It didn't appear to make a difference that Kiba was walking an Naruto still in the bum-shuffling stages.

Kushina surveyed her students, and gritted her teeth. This wasn't a speech she'd ever seen herself giving.

"This is not going to go away," she said softly. "Anko - Anko is not going to wake up one day and _not_ be blind. Just like Hayate isn't going to magically be cured of his TB and Iruka's parents aren't coming back."

Even with the blindfolds, undisguised shock was evident on the boys faces, but what really got her was that Anko's face had actually moved.

The girl laughed.

"I can't fix that." She let that in. "I can't fix _any _of that. But what I can do is make the most of it. We can make the most of it. Do you have _any idea_ how powerful you could be, if you really put your heart and soul into this training? Extended senses, a _cohesive_ group working as one without needing to see each other or make a sound to communicate. You can use this. That's what you do with the crap things like throws at you. You _use_ it. So." She pulled out a length of black cloth ad tied it over her eyes. "We are going to use this. I'm not going to watch. I won't be here to protect you. You work off instinct, and instinct alone. I can't see you, so I don't know if you're about to kill each other, so for the love of all things holy, _don't_ give me something else to use, all right? Any questions?"

A pause.

"Kushina-nee-chan?"

_Anko._ It seemed the habit she'd dropped, she'd picked up again.

"Yeah?"

"What does cohesive mean?"

xXx

"This heart thing sucks," Kakashi murmured into Rin's hair as she hugged him tightly.

She closed her eyes. "I know, Kakashi. I know."

xXx

"…and in conclusion, training ground three will not be available for use until someone fixes the crater in the ground."

"But?"

"But Team Kushina did not hit each other once."

The Hokage smiled. "Thank you, Itachi-kun."

xXx

_Heyheyhey, it's Chapter in a Day! :shoots self in head for bad rhyme:_

_Ugh. Those last few scenes I think, sucked. :headdeskheaddeskheaddesk:_

_What I really wanted to show you guys here is that although Kushina has a lot of Naruto's traits…or vice versa…she's still very much her own person and the stress is really getting to her. In the beginning of this story, it was only her and Naruto and she spent all her energy on him. Now she can delegate, she has more time to realise the shambles her life has turned into._


	16. Chapter 15

_I don't think I've been respecting this story nearly enough, and I'd like to apologise to you guys for that. I'm definitely going to try harder, especially with the chronic typo-ing. I do have a typo-fixer now, __**cricketchick1900**__, but it's not fair to her and it's certainly not fair to you readers to litter the fic with typos because of this safety net. I solemnly promise to make a better effort and pull this fic into a cohesive story. I know I have a short attention span and have trouble seeing things as a whole instead of just the bit-chapters I post, so feel free to point out when something's coming too fast or dragging on too long._

_That said, I'm off hiatus (for this fic) and on holiday! It's damn cold, so my fingers are finding it difficult to type, but nonetheless here is chapter 15!_

xXx

Kushina raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You're moving back in with Rin?" Over in the training ground, Iruka's cry of pain echoed as Hayate managed to sock him in the gut.

Kakashi shrugged. "I'm paying for the apartment. Why, you going to miss me?" There was an oddly self-deprecating light to his visible eye that she didn't quite understand. Or understand at all, really.

She turned back to bobbing Naruto up and down on her knees. "Yes. Of course. You're fantastic with the kids, you make good food and I don't want to rip my eyeballs out when I see you. What's not to miss?"

He gave her a begrudging smile from behind the mask before flopping onto the grass next to her. "How're they going?" he asked, supposedly referring to the genin.

Kushina wrinkled her nose. She had gone back to guiding the genin as she watched instead of getting involved after she realised just how large that crater in training ground three was. "I had to take the weapons off them. The old man agrees with the training, but he says we can't afford to fix more holes like the one we made last week. I'll give 'em back once they get good enough at hand-to-hand."

"Good enough?" Kakashi repeated dubiously.

She grinned. "Good enough as in damn near perfect."

"Thought you were losing it there for a moment."

"Me? Never." She yawned, bouncing Naruto a little higher. Her son giggled, waving his hands at her as she turned her attention back to the genin. "Anko!" she called loudly and with no purpose. The girl jerk her head over and subsequently, got brained by Iruka. Out of the three of them, he was taking to the blind training the best. Even Anko herself, who couldn't just turn off the blindness, was still falling over things. Of course, the fact that Iruka and Hayate were taking turns at tripping her probably had something to do with it.

"What the hell was that for?" the girl roared, elbowing Iruka in the face in retaliation. The latest pep talk appeared to have sunk in, and for the past week she'd been concentrating on her training and nothing else. She was just as obsessive about it as she was about laughing at tragedy, but at least she was being productive.

"Training!" Kushina shot back. After all, life out in the field wasn't going to be orchestrated like this. Distractions could come out of nowhere, and the kids had to learn how to deal with that.

"And it was pretty damn funny to watch?" Kakashi enquired quietly.

Kushina laughed, and watched her son giggle again in response. "That too," she agreed, before turning back to Naruto. With the stress of looking after so many children and only having Kakashi's help, Kushina hadn't been able to pay nearly as much attention to her son as she would have liked too. The boy twisted in her grasp and laughed again, pointing at where Anko was beating Hayate into the ground, before babbling away happily in his own little language. She smiled gently, rubbing her nose in his soft mop of hair. He smelled like every child should - an odd mixture of soap and dirt that evoked a feeling of home.

"Right, I'm off," Kakashi said, hoisting himself to his feet.

Kushina stared at him from her position on the ground. "You just sat down!"

"My mistake." He flashed her one of those horribly fake smiles. "Mission."

She frowned. "You've been taking on a lot of those lately, Kakashi. Maybe you should--"

"It's fine."

"But--"

"It's fine. I'll be back in a week or so."

And without a further word, he disappeared. Naruto gave a disconcerted gurgle at the jounin's sudden disappearance and Kushina had to resist the urge to echo him.

"He's been taking a lot of missions lately," a tentative voice came from behind her. "I'm worried about him."

Kushina stilled. _Well, this isn't awkward at all_. "I thought you weren't talking to me, Rin." Never one for beating around the bush, she didn't see the point in ignoring the fact that they hadn't spoken a civil word to each other in the past nine or so weeks.

"I, well…" the girl trailed off and sighed. "Can I sit down?"

"Go for it." Naruto squirmed a little in her grasp, but she didn't let go. Kiba had toddled into the midst of the mess that was her genin-training scheme and nearly gotten his head taken off a few days before. As such, Kiba was now with Hana while the girl trained her dogs under the supervision of some Inuzuka or another.

Rin took Kakashi's vacated position and folded her legs neatly under her before diving headlong into what was bothering her.. "I…I'm not sorry. Well. I'm not sorry for what I said in there beginning. What you did to Kakashi was _wrong_, and I stand by that but…"

Kushina jiggled Naruto in her lap a little, looking over at the genin as she spoke. "Do you honestly think," she said slowly. "that I don't regret what I did? That I'm not _sorry_?"

"Of course I understand that!" In her peripheral vision, she saw Rin bite her lip and look worried. "But the fact remains that you still _did_ it. You could have killed Kakashi, _Kakashi, _who trusts you and loves you too much to blame you." She paused for a moment and stared at Kushina in shock for some reason or another. When Kushina merely blinked in reaction, Rin shook her head. "That's not what I came here to say."

_Loves me?_ Kushina had never really thought of her relationship with the other jounin like that before, but she supposed they did love each other. "Then what did you want to say, Rin? I'm sure there's nothing you can blame me for that I haven't already blamed myself for, but you're welcome to try."

Of course she still felt guilty. _Of course_ she did. Kakashi was her best friend, Minato's student, someone she was meant to _protect._ Two months and an easy forgiveness didn't do anything to change the fact that she'd messed up, despite whatever Kakashi thought.

Rin sighed again. "That's the point. I didn't mean to come here to blame you for anything at all. I know you're sorry. I know you didn't mean to do it. I know…I know you were scared out of your mind for Anko. I'm still - I'm _still_ angry at what you did, and I'm angry at Kakashi for not caring and for being angry at me for being angry and, and, and…" A long pause, during which Anko managed to fend off both Hayate and Iruka before falling face-first to the ground. "I miss you, nee-chan. I still love you and I'm not angry at _you_. I'm angry at what you did. Honestly, I think I'm being a little silly now, but I can't help it."

Kushina looked at the girl sideways. "You know, you're painfully honest, Rin."

The medic blushed.

She sighed, leaning back on her hands and hooking her toes into the loops of Naruto's bright orange pants. "I'm glad. It makes a change from Kakashi, who never _speaks_ anymore." The red-head squinted up at the sky. "Do you have any idea why he's been acting so strangely lately?" She hid a smile as Rin's muscles slowly relaxed and the girl slumped a little more comfortably.

"Well…not anything he'd be willing for me to share, I think."

Kushina was oddly hurt by this statement. "He tells you things he doesn't tell me?"

Rin gave her a humourless smile. "No. I guess things he doesn't want to tell _anyone_."

"Oh." She decided to give up on that line of conversation - Rin wasn't one for sharing _anybody's_ secrets, let alone those of her closest friend. "Will you be coming to Naruto's birthday?"

"Of course!" Rin sounded almost affronted in her enthusiasm. "I wouldn't miss it for - oh…"

"Yeah." It was Kushina's turn for the humourless smile. "If you want to go to the memorial thing, go ahead. The old man's taking the kids for me in the morning, although I don't know what Kakashi's doing."

Rin cracked her knuckles and Kushina imagined she could hear thunder cracking overhead. "Trust me. He's coming. I don't know if he knows it yet, but he's coming."

The older woman burst out laughing and Rin, after looking confused for a brief second, joined in sheepishly. Kushina tipped over slightly and threw her arms around the girl, hugging her tightly. "I've missed you, Rin. It's good to have you back."

"It's good to be back, nee-chan." She paused. "Uh, Naruto just wriggled out of his pants. You might want to do something about that."

xXx

Anko had a secret.

It wasn't a big secret. Not big-huge like the whatever-it-was that everyone was keeping from her. That thing that happened with _O_ - the snake man. But it was still a secret, because she knew that if she told anyone they'd all give her strange looks and while it was fun to laugh at strange looks, Anko didn't like it when the strange looks were directed at her.

Anko's secret?

She…sort of liked being blind.

It was far more than a huge inconvenience. When she'd first figured out that she was never going to see anything ever, ever again, it had been horrific. The one thing, the _one_ thing she'd been good at (killing things), it was being taken away from her, and she was not happy about that. Not happy at all.

But then Kushina, Kushina-nee-chan, she did that _thing_ that she always did and now Anko felt hope.

They said that hope was the single most soul destroying thing in the world. They told shinobi to stay far, far away from it. Anko, however, was addicted and despite that, despite herself, Kushina-nee-chan made her _believe_. She made her believe that hope wasn't a bad thing.

So that was reason number one. Being blind gave Anko hope, and hope was a Good Thing, no matter what people told her.

Reason number two was probably the main reason for not wanting to tell anyone the secret, Anko decided. Because it was weak and unnecessary and really, really un-Anko. Of course, she wasn't entirely sure who Anko was anymore, but she didn't like to think that Anko was--

All right, now she was just confusing herself. Reason number two was that…people paid attention to her.

Before the whatever-it-was with _O_ - the snake man - Anko had known that her team cared about her. She hadn't believed it, but she had certainly known it. Now, however, with Iruka and Hayate training blind for her, sticking with her even when they could just have easily gone on to create another team and given some other not-blind-girl a chance at being genin, she was starting to maybe-sorta-believe it.

They paid attention to her. And it was _good_ attention, not like the whatever-it-was with _O_ - the snake man. In fact, Anko might even have gone so far to say that the attention everyone was giving her was called love. And she'd always known that love was a Good Thing.

Being blind had brought her Hope and Love, things that were So Good they also deserved capitalisation. Therefore, didn't that mean that being blind was a Good Thing as well?

Logic said so, and if there was one thing Anko thought she'd always been good at, it was logic.

xXx

Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, or ANBU. Really, the Assassination Tactics Special Military Force was a self-explanatory, if entirely too politically correct title for what he was a part of without the cheesy acronym to go with it.

The 'dark side' of Konoha politics. ANBU did the kind of work that no aspiring shinobi ever dreamed of doing. He'd like to think it was so those aspiring shinobi didn't _have_ to dream of doing those things, but he wasn't naïve and he'd never been stupid. Everyone in ANBU was there for some thinly veiled selfish reason or another, whether it be a childlike delight in torture or an obsessive need to cover up the stains of blood with more blood. All of them were covered up with the idea that they did it for their Village.

No. The Hokage, perhaps, gave orders on the premise that it was to save the Village from death and destruction. Possibly, he even believed that. Those in ANBU were too hurt, too jaded, to bat-shit insane for such high morals.

When he put the mask on, he was nothing. He became a non-entity, free from guilt and want and horrible, soul-eating jealously. When he put the mask on, he could do whatever he wanted without consequence.

The ANBU smirked bitterly, but the mask ate it up and remained unchanged.

If only.

xXx

_Right. So I know who our mysterious ANBU is, but I can think of two people that it could be. If that makes sense. Feel free to guess away, I'm sure it's fairly obvious regardless (although that could just be because I know who it is)._

_It's good to be back. It may have taken a while for me to get into the swing of things with this chapter, but I'm feeling good about it. I hope you are too._


End file.
